Power Ballad movie review: Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas lead invigorating John Carney film with one hell of a song

Here’s an early 2027 Oscar prediction: Power Ballad is a shoe-in for a nomination in best original song.

OK, OK. Maybe that’s a cop-out because that’s not a particularly flashy category, but when it comes to this movie, it’s significant.

Too often we’re asked to believe that a fictional comedian is funny or an invented pop star is the biggest name in the world when their in-universe work is shrug-worthy.

So, here’s a film about a frustrated musician, a former boy band singer and a song that is so huge that it changes both of their lives – and you actually believe it could.

The ditty, How to Write a Song Without You (the soundtrack is available to stream from the end of this week), is instantly recognisable as a rousing power ballad imbued with big emotions, a hummable hook and anthemic, energising notes that will see it rising to the top of your most-listened-to songs list and added to your next karaoke session.

Irish director John Carney, who co-wrote Power Ballad with Peter McDonald, and penned the song with Gary Clark, is exactly who you want in charge of this film.

His breakthrough film was Once (which did win the Oscar for best original song), and has since made other movies (Sing Street, Begin Again and Flora and Son) where music is instrumental to the story. He knows how to embed it into his characters’ lives, and make it feel essential to their being.

That’s certainly the case in Power Ballad, a very likeable and sunny film that makes excellent use of its two leads in Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas.

Rick (Rudd, who once played a washed-up musician on an episode of Veronica Mars) used to be in an indie band but now lives in Dublin with his wife and teenage daughter, and is the frontman for a wedding cover band. Thoughts and regrets of unfulfilled music stardom are never far from his mind.

At a wedding gig outside of Dublin, one of the guests is Danny (Jonas), who was a member of a boy band but has yet to properly launch a solo career. Danny and Rick click and end up in a night-long jam session where Rick plays Danny an incomplete song he’s been writing for years.

Months later, Rick is in a shopping centre when he hears a familiar strain and words blasting through the overhead speakers. It’s his bloody song, which the world now knows as Danny’s big career comeback.

It rockets up the charts, garners hundreds of millions of streams and is the bedrock of Danny’s enormous stadium tour.

Danny stole his song, and the recognition that Rick desperately wants remains elusive as calls and pleas go unanswered.

Rudd’s Rick represents everyone who had a vision of their lives which was never quite realised, whether it’s a professional, creative, passion or personal ambition that was sacrificed for something else, or it just didn’t happen for whatever reason.

We all have something biting at the back of our minds or hearts, that question of “what if” and “someday”. In some ways, it’s an exploration of how you live with regret without getting consumed by it.

Rudd’s enduring appeal is not just that he seems like such a nice guy (and by all accounts, he is, phew), it’s that he does have an everyman quality to him, which means he may be charming and warm, and has that megawatt Hollywood charisma, but he plays characters who are also a bit bratty. As are we all.

To cast him as Rick, to have him bring all that latent goodwill, means we are immediately on Rick’s side, we related to him, even when he goes to extremes.

Perhaps that’s why Danny is a little more out of grasp for the audience, even though you can still empathise with Danny’s actions. The pressure to have to be this specific thing to everyone else, the spectre of imposter syndrome, like, you get it.

This is great casting, and Carney also confidently manages a tone that can pivot from earnest to comical.

Power Ballad lives up to the promise of its name and reflects what you want from that particular genre of song, which is to feel something, to be swept along and to be invigorated.

Rating: 3.5

Power Ballad is in cinemas from May 28