The Greatest Hits (2024) Review!!

Synopsis – A love story centering on the connection between music and memory and how they transport us, sometimes literally.

My Take – Indeed, music plays an important role in our lives. It connects people in ways beyond sharing similar tastes in genre or artists. While specific songs can remind us of a memorable event, some others can bring back vivid memories from our past particularly associated with grief.

This latest from writer-director Ned Benson, who is best known for the three-pronged romantic drama The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (2014), literally takes the magic of music and mixes it with time travel to push and pull its main character into moments from her relationship with her deceased boyfriend.

Sharing a few similarities with High Fidelity (2000) and many with the already forgotten Press Play (2022), the result is a crafty yet subtle inversion of a slowly growing stale sub-genre that moves beseechingly and then gets out while it’s ahead, aiming for an appropriate emotional impact over anything flashy or absurd.

Sure, the film suffers from occasionally awkward pacing and much of the screenplay is predictable, however, thanks to its winsome cast and the accompanying soundtrack, it’s hard not to be charmed over by this Hulu released musical romance.

The story follows Harriet (Lucy Boynton), who for the past two years has been grieving the sudden death of her boyfriend Max (David Corenswet) in an accident which left her in coma for months. To make matters worse, ever since she woke up, whenever she hears music that played during their relationship, she’s instantaneously transported back to that moment.

Her trip only lasts as long as the song is playing, yet she has no control. When she’s not time-traveling via songs, Harriet does everything she can to minimize aural intrusions in her life: She wears earplugs and headphones to go outside, works at a library, attends group therapy, where she stays mostly mute, despite the best attempts of a kind therapist, Dr. Evelyn Bartlett (Retta), and doesn’t even see her best friend Morris (Austin Crute), a local DJ, until he’s told her it’s safe. In the sense he’s not playing any songs on her greatest hits list. She’s lost all her friends and even given up her dreams of working in record production.

Leaving her with nothing but a desperate quest to find the song that takes her back to the moment she can change the past and prevent the accident that cost Max his life. Change arrives in the form of David (Justin H. Min), who joins her grief support group, with his own troubles and traumas to spare and the two form a quick connection. It’s almost as if they’ve met before.

The rest of the film play out in pretty much the exact way you would expect. The protagonist has to learn to love again after being hurt by tragedy. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel. But, the idea of using musical triggers to recall grief and send someone back to a moment in time is a clever one and luminously executed here.

Here, Benson’s confident script and enchanting, modest direction ensures that the film doesn’t bite off more than it can chew. It’s a film with scope and ambition but not ego. Its humble nature keeps the characters from feeling pretentious in their love for deep-cut music and rare vinyl. It is also not terribly interested in the mechanics of the time travel, giving us a brief rundown and not trying to explain it.

Instead, it is more interested in the meaning that music has for the characters and the power it carries to connect us to one another. Where this film excels in how it handles grief. It discusses it in a meaningful way without leaving us emotionally scarred. It discusses how in a deep desire to keep the memory of the lost person alive but we sometimes stop making new memories.

The film explores this beautifully and Harriet’s struggle is not an unfamiliar one. As one can expect, the soundtrack is effectively a central character. Yes, some of them a bit on the nose, with lyrics that say the emotions the characters are feeling rather than conveying them in a more expressionistic manner, however, if it works well as jukebox musical of sorts.

Also, like so many romances, it relies on the charm and chemistry of its stars to succeed. Lucy Boynton impressively handles her role with aplomb. She is throughout game for the illogical premise that sees Harriet handle loss like a character that feels utterly familiar. David Corenswet does a good job of creating a persona of the image of the ideal boyfriend that will be missed.

Justin H. Min is also terrific as David who slowly draws Harriet out of her shell and begins to heal himself. It helps that Boynton shares great chemistry with both Corenswet and Min, leaving one torn on who should win out in the end. In supporting roles, Austin Crute, Andie Ju and Retta are decent. On the whole, ‘The Greatest Hits’ is a winsome romantic fantasy tale that anchored by its solid soundtrack and strong performances.