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Plot Overview
A 31-year-old woman finds her world slowly turning to poo, thus forcing her to spend more time than she wishes to with her family. A family which features a former crooner trying to get his 2nd chance and would-be perfect sister. All the while, the 31-year-old is a wannabe singer who doesn’t push herself to go from being backup to the front of the stage.
Rating:
TV Viewing
Review Summary
While Christopher Walken shines as a womanizing crooner with two vastly different daughters, his girls played by Amber Heard and Kelli Garner are a bit lopsided and not as well rounded as his character.
Main Storyline (with Commentary)
Jude (Amber Heard) is a 31-year-old young woman who has multicolored hair, loves New York, and wants to be a singer. However, between her father not supporting her in the past, alongside being slightly content with doing jingles and backup, she hasn’t really done much. Something which bothers her father Paul (Christopher Walken) for, despite him trashing her in the past, on something petty, he sees potential in her. But due to many issues Jude and Paul have, unfortunately, the two never see eye to eye and the bickering is constant. All the while, as Paul dotes so much on Jude, there is her sister Corinne (Kelli Garner). Someone who can’t sing like her father, but is stable and successful, unlike her sister. Thus making her the good child Paul has never had to worry about which has left her often forgotten or just given small talk.
Yet with Paul writing a new song, one which could be big, it seems the energy is high! But with one of Paul’s old habits catching up with him, it seems the fun may end up over before it has begun. On top of that, being that Jude is having a hard time keeping things together, she finds herself looking for love in all the wrong places.
Highlights
You know, Christopher Walken, while not always in the best of movies, usually is the silver lining in whatever he is in. Now, while One More Time may not be something you have to run to, if you have an interest in Walken singing, being a bit comical, or you just love the oddness of his voice, this is worth catching. As a former crooner, one who was a womanizer, he has a lot of comical stories and in general, the character is lovable, well-rounded, and has his jokes here and there. The main thing worth noting though is his song which really was the highlight of the movie for me.
Though most of the music, in general, is quite enjoyable I should add.
Low Points
To be honest, between how pretentious Corinne and Jude seem, on top of Jude being like a less aloof Kristen Stewart type, it was sometimes hard to get into the movie. Reason being, you got this spoiled rich girl, who seems like an arrogant aficionado on Jazz, as a protagonist. She is someone whose music is alright and while you can see she has daddy issues, being that Walken is portrayed as flawed, but generally likable, he is balanced out. On the other hand, when it comes to Jude, there isn’t anything really tipping the scale to make her seem well rounded. If anything you just get one reason after another to not want to invest in her.
Something which can also be said for Corinne who, sadly, is as much a second fiddle in the movie as her character is next to Jude. Which is unfortunate since sometimes you want to feel for Corinne. After all, she was the sister which did something right and yet she gets no attention. She is the sister who has a family, a career, and doesn’t visit her dad for money but simply to see him, and yet when Jude pops up she gets all the focus. And despite on paper her sounding like someone you would sympathize for, unfortunately, what happens is everyone picks on Jude and it is like the movie desperately wants you to feel sorry for her as opposed to Corinne. Making it so, outside of one moment in which Corinne turns from an annoying sister to the dutiful daughter, she seems like an utterly weakly crafted co-star.
On The Fence
A seldom mentioned person is this review, in fact, I didn’t mention him at all, is Tim (Hamish Linklater). He is someone who is part of Jude’s past and Corinne’s present, and at times is Jude’s sole defender. Yet, it is hard to say whether the character is someone who is an asset to the movie, or just a tool to show how stable Corinne’s life is, or why Jude doesn’t necessarily like her sister.
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Quite the summary/ mini review. Thanks for it.
Certainly the strongest and grittiest performance of Amber Heard’s career to date, and a film in which by any measure she should have received top billing but didn’t! A once-big but now way-past expiration crooner who straddled the Rat Pack and Hippie era, whose treatment of all the women in his life has been appalling, plots a Quixotic comeback while his daughters (Heard and Garner) pick up the pieces of his and their own lives. This is a generational tale of a heedless, destructive, incontinent Boomer and his conflicts with his long-suffering Millennial offspring. This story might not work but for Heard’s passable but affecting singing and existential pathos, resolved in a wistful yet determined conclusion.