Dad Jokes: POWER BALLAD and THE BREADWINNER

Sometimes you just want to go to the movies and see a light story about plausible people in slightly implausible scenarios adjacent to real life. Like if your life had a sprinkling of movie magic over it, you might stumble into something like this, too. That’s something that Irish writer-director John Carney seems to understand well when he gets the formula exactly right in building his light dramas that are lifted to something closer to transcendence through the power of music. It was there in his intimate, casual street-busker romance from 2006, Once, and in his 80s coming-of-age garage band musical from 2016, Sing Street. And it’s there again in his latest: Power Ballad. (I guess he gets it right exactly once every ten years.) It stars Paul Rudd as an expat American singer-songwriter working as the front man to a wedding band. He gave up his dreams of stardom to settle down in a Dublin suburb with an Irish wife and daughter. But he never stopped writing. This is the part that is definitely believable. 

The slight fantasy of the movie is that his band gets a gig at the reception for the childhood best friend of a former boy band member. Wouldn’t you know it that the fading celeb (played by an aptly cast Nick Jonas) is planning a comeback and is in town to write his new album? He shows up at the wedding, jams with the band, and connects with Rudd. They have fun buddy chemistry as they share some works in progress with each other and part ways feeling good about meeting a simpatico artist. Six months later, Rudd hears one of his songs over the speakers at the local mall. The star stole his song. Carney explores the ramifications with a degree of generosity to both men, and watches as the one’s anger and the other’s guilt keep them apart. But the movie’s light tone and strain of good humor—not to mention the great original songs—make some kind of happy ending inevitable. That might keep the movie’s scope, and emotional range, small, but there’s something so deeply satisfying about watching a well-oiled sentimental script go through its paces with likable leads and catchy tunes. It’s the John Carney special. 

Even lighter and less substantial is The Breadwinner. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t satisfy in its own way. Starring and co-written by standup comedian Nate Bargatze, it’s a down-the-middle sitcom of the sort that comics of his observational, family friendly kind would do all the time in the 80s and 90s on TV and the big screen. As such, it has a throwback, even retrograde, premise. He’s a husband, a father, and a well-meaning oaf. His wife (Mandy Moore) has a great business opportunity, care of a sequence in which the Shark Tank judges play themselves. (I'd say part of the fantasy here is that her invention would even get a deal.) Now she has to leave for two weeks to launch her product, which means he needs to be the sole parent to their three adorable daughters. Hijinks ensue. If you’re already imagining burnt toast, laundry shenanigans, and driving the wrong way to school, you have the right idea. It might seem a little unusual to imagine a dad so far out of the loop these days. But this isn’t a movie about all dads; it’s a movie about this dad. And Bargatze makes a believably unaware guy. His standup works because of its low-key befuddlement, like an affable guy who’s slowly learning about how to process his own life. Though obviously his observational style relies on some intelligent comprehension, he knows how to approach everyday problems with an unassuming gee-didja-notice? attitude. He has the right slightly stunned look to sell the well-meaning confusion. 

He brings to the movie that sense of middle class bewilderment, and a gooey sentimentality about the love of family that draws a guy out of his bubble of privilege and into fuller responsibility. It helps that the kids are so cute, and the jokes are actually pretty funny—bolstered by a supporting cast including Will Forte, Colin Jost, Kate Berlant, Zach Cherry, Kumail Nanjiani. It has all the charms of the throwbacks it’s copying, with a little Everybody Loves Raymond here, a little Home Improvement there. But it has mercifully none of the gender anxiety the premise might provoke. He genuinely doesn’t mind that his wife has to be the main breadwinner and wants to help her. He’s just not used to doing without the valuable co-parenting work she’s been providing. It feels, if not exactly true to life, true to some lives. Like the Adam Sandler movies of twenty years ago, it’s cleanly shot, stuffed with silly asides, and loaded up with product placement. (Thanks, Toyota, KFC, and Walmart, I guess.) It's not vulgar or crass, just sweet and gentle. We don’t get live action comedies in theaters much, and certainly not family friendly ones. It’s nice to remember what it’s like to be in room of people chuckling along with one that gets the job done.