Movie Review : Begin Again

During the announcement of this year's Oscars nominees, a song called Lost Stars was mentioned as a nominee for the best original song category. The song is taken from the movie entitled Begin Again, starring Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, Adam Levine, Hailee Steinfeld, James Corden, etc. I had known about this movie for a while when I heard about the nomination, but I hadn't seen it and knew nothing about the song. After the announcement, I listened to the song and immediately fell in love with it. And then I decided to see the movie, and then I fell in love with it too.

So Begin Again  is about two lonely people, Gretta (Knightley) and Dan (Ruffalo). Gretta is a talented singer-songwriter who gets betrayed by her rock star boyfriend Dave (Levine) while Dan is a music producer who gets fired by his business partner. Dan thinks Gretta is the great discovery that can help him get his job back. Then, they start working on Gretta's demo with their friends, but the process turns out to be more than just a recording process: it makes the two realize what they really want in this life, what they want to do with their music, and so much more.

This movie made me cry A LOT. This is not even a sad movie but I did cry so much. It is just so natural and sweet and cute; it just touches my heart. The story is about music and, to be honest, I'm not really a "music" person. But this story makes me see music through the eyes of the people who love it so deeply. I can see how music magically fixes a broken family, how it makes a broken teenage girl smile again, how it can make you understand things that cannot be spoken, how it contains all the feelings inside its writer's heart. It's just beautiful.

It is so easy for me to relate to Gretta. She is lonely and loves someone, who wastes her love, like a fool. She turns her feelings into songs and doesn't care about what people think about her songs because they are hers, not theirs. She gets tempted by that foolish love when her ex boyfriend wants her back but then she realizes that it's not what she wants. My favorite Gretta scene is near the end of the movie, where Dave sings their song, Lost Stars, and Gretta watches him with a smile. The happiness in her face slowly fades and then she runs away. Her heart is broken. I'm not sure about this because it's never explicitly explained in the movie, but I think, at that moment, she realizes that she doesn't want to be with Dave anymore. I think she realizes that things can never go back to they way they used to be. I could really feel her heartbreak in that scene. And then cried like a baby haha.

Keira Knightley plays Gretta very naturally and beautifully in this movie, but James Corden, who plays Steve, is definitely the scene-stealer. I really love his scenes with Keira. They're so natural and don't look like they're scripted. Their scenes together look like a video of two real, drunk friends chatting. And then there's Hailee Steinfeld, who plays Dan's daughter, Violet. Her character always tries to look tough and careless but she is actually really sweet at heart. I just can't stand her cuteness.

Another thing that I adore from this movie is, of course, Lost Stars, the song. I really love the Adam Levine version (that's the one in the scene that made me cry) but Keira's version is also nice and so natural. Ehm how many times have I said the word "natural"? Well the movie IS really natural.

So I think Begin Again deserves more recognition and everyone should see it. The movie is so beautiful. It is the kind of movie that would make you smile and cry at the same time; the kind that brings warmth to your heart.

Rating : 4/5