john carney’s films lie in the sparse valley between film and proper musical, but they all do share one trait: characters incapable of communication instead doing so via music — through strings and keys and lyrics, usually in varying stages of creation. they’re invariably human: the collision of two lost creatives in orbit of each other. that’s pretty as much miracle we can ask for in the world we live in.
a song, a city, and its people — sometimes that’s all that’s needed to create the kind of film that lingers in the air, like the final note of a song making a final round in the music hall, long after everyone else has packed up and gone.
