A mash up of You’ve Got Mail and Eddie and the Cruisers.
Okay, not really. But kind of. Rose Byrne is a curator of the historical society in a small English seaside town, and she lives with her professor boyfriend Chris O’Dowd, whose primary passion is the work and life of an alt rock phenom of the 80s, Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke). Hawke went into hiding at the height of his underground fame, thus making him even more of an enigma and obsession for O’Dowd and like-minded fans.
O’Dowd clearly loves Hawke more than Byrne, and his primary focus is on the blog he manages which is solely dedicated to his idol. In a fit of pique, Byrne posts a scathing review of Hawke’s work, and Hawke alights from his bunker to respond, thereby sparking an intimate long distance connection.
To tell more would be a true spoiler. This is a charming, very funny, clever film. Byrne (the hardest working woman in pictures) is her winning self and O’Dowd painfully funny, but Hawke steals the film as the jaded, regretful but still hopeful former “star” (we are not talking David Bowie; think Jeff Tweedy, after the first two Wilco records, just disappearing). Chock full of wry observations on hero worship, the digital age, the concept of family, and intimacy.
I knocked this down half a point because Byrne has a sister who is just a little too “on” and the film ends rather abruptly.
On Amazon Prime.
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