Power Ballad review: Promising themes left undeveloped

Power Ballad follows Rick, an American musician settled in Dublin, played by Paul Rudd. He leads an all-male wedding band, has a wife, Rachel, and a teenage daughter, Aja, and now and again a shadow of regret flickers across his face. On a trip for a lavish wedding Rick meets Danny (Nick Jonas), a pop musician; a late-night jam between them yields a song that will change both men's trajectories.

Danny reworks the tune, turns it into an unlikely monster hit and Rick sets off to secure his rightful due. The film gestures toward the joys of collaboration, the precarity of celebrity and the evils of the music industry, but it rarely develops those threads.

Director John Carney, who co-wrote the script with Peter McDonald, keeps the tone insistently light and skims the surface of emotional complexity. Marcella Plunkett and Beth Fallon, as Rachel and Aja, exist mainly to reflect something about Rick rather than to function as fully formed characters.

power ballad, paul rudd, nick jonas, john carney, dublin, wedding band, music industry, collaboration, hit song, celebrity