Some movies earn their creators an enormous amount of goodwill. John Carney’s Once, the low-budget, low-concept 2006 hit about two people who collide musically and romantically — to a killer soundtrack — pretty much secured my interest in anything the Irish writer-director releases.
Now, Carney, who was the bassist for Dublin rockers the Frames in the 1990s, returns with Power Ballad, a much higher-concept comedy-drama set in the music world and costarring Nick Jonas in a role reminiscent of his real-life boy-band origins. See it at Essex Cinemas.
The deal
Fifteen years ago, musician Rick Power (Paul Rudd) came to Ireland on tour with his up-and-coming band, met Rachel (Marcella Plunkett), and never left. Now, the couple are raising their teenage daughter (Beth Fallon) in Dublin, where Rick fronts a wedding band called the Bride and Groove. All that remains of his rock-star dreams are the original tunes he still sometimes sings at gigs, to the dismay of wedding parties.
At a lavish wedding in a castle, Rick vibes with guest Danny Wilson (Jonas), a boy-band idol struggling to launch a solo career. Danny respects the older man’s craft, and during a tipsy all-night jam session, Rick helps him with one of his compositions and plays him a catchy song of his own called “How to Write a Song (Without You).”
Six months later, Rick hears his song playing in a mall. Danny has recorded a pop version of it without crediting Rick, and now it’s a monster hit. Rick has no legally viable proof of his authorship, and Danny’s slick LA manager (Jack Reynor) treats him like a joke. But that’s his hit everyone’s humming, and Rick won’t let it go.
Will you like it?
Power Ballad has an irresistible hook. It’s rare these days to see a theatrical movie about unglamorous middle-aged people, let alone a middle-aged artist grappling with frustrated ambition. The parallels between Rick and Danny — two all-American boys with the same musical idols — give extra tension to their generational and class divides. And the film’s central question — who really owns a pop hit? — intersects with current debates about the music business, intellectual property and (inevitably) AI.
The premise could have been rich material for a dark parable of how big money and the celebrity machine crush small creators — think The Social Network in the music world. But that sort of sweeping indictment isn’t for Carney, nor does he make inspirational fables. His interest is in people — specifically, people who devote their lives to music — so Power Ballad walks the line between cynicism and wishful fantasy by staying essentially Rick’s story. His fight for what he’s owed gradually becomes a belated reckoning, a renegotiation of his relationship to his art.
Rudd has the exact right combination of charm and prickliness to make the character work. Never mind that Rick’s backstory makes no chronological sense — how was this fiftysomething a dewy-faced young rocker with ’80s hair just 15 years ago? (Decades seem to collapse like a telescope so the story can take place in present day, à la One Battle After Another.) We still root for Rick as he confronts the question of what, exactly, he’s wanted all this time — to play for packed stadiums, or simply to have his music heard around the globe? Can one be enough without the other?
The movie is strongest when it focuses on Rick, his family and his bandmates, including lovable stoner Sandy (Peter McDonald, who cowrote the script with Carney). But the conceit becomes unwieldy when Carney brings us into Danny’s world, too, emphasizing his similarities to Rick as a younger musician at a crossroads.
The issue isn’t Jonas’ acting — he gives Danny a winning earnestness and insecurity. It’s that Carney and McDonald seem to have decided at some point they needed a villain. In its third act, Power Ballad veers dangerously close to a simplistic David and Goliath story, with Danny flattened into an antagonist no more complex than his odiously smug manager. While it’s certainly believable that Danny would steal Rick’s song with a shrug, his moral callowness here doesn’t match his more nuanced depiction earlier.
The strength of a great power ballad tends to lie in its simplicity. Power Ballad, by contrast, muddies the waters enough to dilute its own message; the script feels a couple of rewrites away from brilliance. It never does justice to those bigger questions about art and commerce, either.
But Rick’s journey has plenty of meaning in itself, and when the movie works, it really works, combining feel-good moments with bittersweet insight. If it were a song, it would have an uplifting chorus and verses that resonate with hard-won experience.
If you like this, try…
Once (2007; Broadway HD, rentable): At a pivotal moment in Power Ballad, Rick encounters a busker performing one of the yearning folk-rock tunes from the Oscar-winning soundtrack of Carney’s breakout film about a busker who teams up with a Czech immigrant singer-songwriter.
Sing Street (2016; Starz, YouTube Primetime, rentable): Carney’s youth inspired his coming-of-age comedy-drama set in 1980s Dublin, in which a teenager tries to impress a girl by starting a band.
Begin Again (2013; Philo, PLEX, Prime Video, Roku Channel, Tubi, rentable): Mark Ruffalo, Keira Knightley and Adam Levine starred in Carney’s romantic drama about a disillusioned singer and producer finding their groove. My review called it “fluff with a bracing touch of fiber.”
This article appears in June 10 • 2026.
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