It's really a shame that films such as these are having to be released on home digital instead of a normal, theatrical run because this would have absolutely killed it. Nisha Ganatra's The High Note is a very entertaining and crowd-pleasing story that contains some great performances and music that are sure to get stuck in people's heads for a while. What really brought me into this film was its cast, as I have been seeing more and more of both Dakota Johnson and Kelvin Harrison Jr. that I have been impressed by recently. They were my central draw-in if I'm being honest and while they did not disappoint, I was quite let down by how run-of-the-mill this entire story was. The writing and direction were some of the most cookie-cutter storytelling I have ever seen and it frankly did not do much for me. However, if there's one issue that this film suffers from more than anything else is not its mediocrity but its lens flares. No more lens flares! The world has progressed past the need for more lens flares!
Maggie Sherwoode (Dakota Johnson) has been world-renowned music icon Grace Davis' (Tracee Ellis Ross) personal assistant for three years but dreams of one day becoming a producer of her own. When Maggie meets a young musician named David (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), she begins a double life of producing for him while not trying to jeopardize her career with Grace. What I really like about this film is how invested in it the entire cast and crew felt. While it might not have been the most original film of all time, in fact far from it, there is an evident amount of hard work that these filmmakers put in. The script by Flora Greeson was solid and I really started to feel for these characters. The journies that they took as characters individually were decently interesting and I really enjoy how she tied everything together in the end. What really brought this together were the performances from Johnson, Ross, and Harrison Jr. They are all such amazingly talented performers and I really enjoyed how dedicated to their roles they seemed to be. This story might be a bit too cheesy for the talent of these actors and actresses but they definitely took what they were given and ran with it. I also adored how these three actually sang all of their own parts throughout the catchy music. I had no clue that either Johnson, Ross, or Harrison Jr. had any musical background but they carried each other to the beat incredibly well. The High Note may not be on its way to winning any Grammys but the music by Amie Doherty was very well-written and fit the tone of the story. My one complaint is that many scenes were overlayed with music that felt very out of touch for the moment and I wish that Ganatra could have brought together those moments in a more concise way.
The most glaring part of this film that I could not help but notice was its sheer mediocrity. I am not complaining about how this film was written or directed but I just think that so many of its choices could have been much stronger. Every scene is filled with some of the most stereotypical dialogue and it got to the point that I could not even feel for these characters as people. Then again, it's a bit difficult to make a musical story like this more compelling than the slew of others. More than anything, this film kinda felt like a Disney Channel original movie but with more "mature" themes. Other things that needed desperate improvement were the direction from Ganatra and the cinematography from Jason McCormick. It seems like Ganatra knows that her audience knows how to tell a story and instead of trying to deviate from that norm to tell something interesting, she instead put all the replaceable pieces together in workable order and called it a day. She has an obvious knack for telling these kinds of feel-good and progressive stories but there was nothing in this film that really warranted too much discussion. Deeper themes are hinted at but little to nothing is done to explore what could have been a much more interesting conversation. A film about racism and misogyny in the music industry would have been stellar and while that is hinted at in one line, nothing else is done about it. Just a simple shift of focus from the dull, central story would have been incredibly beneficial. McCormick is also a fantastic talent, as he even shot my favorite movie of 2019, but this entire film felt very commercialized and plastic. Way too many cheap lens flares, way too many establishing shots, and way too many boring ways of staging these characters. A musical film like A Star is Born took its time to really focus on the cinematography and framing and while that film is nothing like The High Note, it at least had a stronger plan of action for its impactful, visual storytelling.
The High Note definitely did not reach any new heights that it so promised, but it is quite serviceable nonetheless. I would not be opposed to visiting this film again because it really contains everything that makes a musical story of this magnitude so rewatchable but this is just amusing background noise at best. I really appreciated the efforts from Ganatra and the entire cast but I feel like a generic story like this is way below them. I know that there is so much talent behind this entire cast and crew but I just never felt like this was the passion project of anyone involved.
My Rating: ★★★
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