'Power Ballad' Cinetopia review: John Carney delivers another charming musical crowd-pleaser

Courtesy of Lionsgate/Cinetopia Film Festival

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Co-writer/director John Carney has always been an efficient filmmaker, capable of packing emotional resonance, memorable music, and richly drawn characters into tight, breezy runtimes that never overstay their welcome. The “Once” and “Sing Street” filmmaker once again delivers a charming musical crowd-pleaser with “Power Ballad,” his most star-driven effort yet, pairing Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas in an endearing, if occasionally overly tidy, story about a washed-up singer-songwriter trying to reclaim credit for the song that changed someone else’s life.

Writing alongside Peter McDonald, Carney continues to mine familiar thematic territory: the messy, deeply personal creative process behind making music, the hunger for validation, and the quiet desperation of artists who feel the world passed them by. Those ideas are embodied in Paul Rudd’s Rick Power, an Ireland-based wedding singer and frontman of the cleverly named cover band The Bride and Groove. Rick may be disappointed that his musical ambitions have boiled down to becoming, as his bandmates put it, a “human jukebox,” but his life isn’t without rewards. He has a loving wife and daughter (Marcella Plunkett and Beth Fallon), even if that domestic stability doesn’t fully soften the sting of unrealized dreams.

By chance, Rick lands a wedding gig where he ends up within the orbit of Danny Wilson (Jonas), a faded pop star still trying to outrun his boy-band image and convince the world he has something meaningful left to say. After a viral performance of Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish,” the two spend a whiskey-soaked night jamming, trading ideas, and discovering an unlikely mutual respect despite coming from entirely different musical worlds. In that moment, the connection feels genuine. Danny even sends Rick off the next day with a pristine, one-of-a-kind guitar as a gesture of friendship.

Months later, Rick is wandering through a mall when he hears “I Don’t Know How To Write a Song Without You” playing overhead, his song, now a full-blown international smash credited to Danny. Worse, nobody believes Rick wrote it. There’s no proof. Even his own daughter, who routinely pokes fun at his songwriting, can’t stop singing it.

You can’t blame her. It’s a terrific song, and a John Carney movie lives or dies by its music. Thankfully, this one delivers another genuine earworm. But the song also becomes the film’s thematic centerpiece, exploring how art can be reinterpreted, repackaged, and emotionally claimed by entirely different people. To Danny, it’s a sweeping love anthem. To Rick, it carries a far more personal truth. That disconnect gives the film its emotional engine.

What follows is part globe-trotting crusade, part identity crisis, as Rick travels from Dublin to Los Angeles trying to force Danny to acknowledge the truth. Jonas is well-cast here, leaning into Danny’s insecurity and arrested development, while Carney regular Jack Reynor has fun as Danny’s smarmy manager, the kind of guy who encourages moral compromise as long as the streams keep climbing.

The film eventually shifts from a story about fame into something more interesting: the desperate need to be seen, heard, and validated as the rightful creator of your own work. Carney and McDonald make some sharp observations about authorship and the uncomfortable reality that art often belongs as much to the audience as the person who made it.

That said, “Power Ballad” can feel a little too eager to keep moving. Characters are introduced with apparent significance only to be sidelined, and certain plot developments, including a chaotic car accident, arrive with surprising weightlessness before being quickly discarded. The film’s emotional logic generally works, but some of its narrative shortcuts feel less like intentional efficiency and more like convenient screenwriting.

And while “Power Ballad” never reaches the emotional highs of Carney’s best work, it also never stalls. It keeps clicking along, remains consistently entertaining, and most importantly, never becomes boring. Some viewers may bristle at how neatly everything wraps up, or wish the film spent more time earning its conclusion, but Carney’s natural charm carries a lot of goodwill.

It may not sit alongside “Once” or “Sing Street,” but even a lesser John Carney effort still knows how to find the right note.

Grade: B

POWER BALLAD played at the Cinetopia Film Festival. Lionsgate will release the film in theaters Friday, June 5.