Butler's Cinema Scene

Nick Offerman, Kiersey Clemons

“HEARTS BEAT LOUD”  My rating: B+ 

97 minutes | MPAA rating: PGH-13

“Hearts Beat Loud” is this year’s “Once,” a dramedy with music about a father/daughter relationship that that could very well be the summer’s most satisfying movie.

Writer/director Brett Haley, whose first two features (“Hero,” “I’ll See  You in My Dreams”) focused on septuagenarian protagonists, here sheds a few decades, centering the film on  Kiersey Clemons, a quietly spectacular young talent.

Frank Fisher (Nick Offerman) runs a record store (no CDs) in Red Hook, N.J. More accurately, he’s running it into the ground. He has little patience for boneheaded customers.

Frank is a widower whose daughter Sam (Clemons) is preparing to leave for college (UCLA…she’s on a pre-med path). Frank is more than a little conflicted about this…for one thing, he’ll miss Sam terribly.

For another, how’s he going to pay for that university education?

Haley’s screenplay (with Mark Basch) chronicles the last days of the record store as well as the growing musical collaboration between father and daughter (he’s a guitarist, she’s a keyboardist with incredible pipes).

For Sam this is simply a fun little hobby with Dad.  When he asks her what they should call their band she responds with a groan: “We’re not a band.” Frank jumps on that comment; soon they’re performing as We’re Not A Band.

Toni Collette

Maybe if he can get a recording of one of their songs out on the internet, Frank can talk his daughter into putting off college for a year. (BTW: Keegan DeWitt’s songs are so good they should be widely heard…this is one soundtrack album I’ll be looking for.)

Against that central plot “Hearts Beat Loud” offers a couple of lovely digressions: Frank’s relationship with his best bud, a local barkeep (Ted Danson…who else?), his growing attraction for the record store’s landlord (Toni Collette) and Sam’s fledgling romance with another young woman (“American Heart’s” Sasha Lane).

(One of the film’s great strengths is its matter-of-factness bout Sam’s bi-racial heritage and her sexual orientation.)

“Hearts Beat Loud” is unpretentious, funny and ultimately touching.

Offerman was such an intimidating presence on TV’s “Parks and Recreation” that it’s almost a shock to see him in sensitive good-guy mode.

And young Clemons — who has an extensive list of TV credits (“Austin & Ally,” “Eye Candy” “Extant,” “Transparent,” “Angie Tribeca”) — makes an effortless leap to movie star.

| Robert W. Butler