The Greatest Hits Review | A Romantic Soundtrack to Loss and Love

Summary

• Lucy Boynton and Justin H. Min shine in
  The Greatest Hits
  , leaving you rooting for their characters.
• The film boasts a standout soundtrack, showcasing a diverse range of songs that set the perfect tone.
• Despite underdeveloped characters, the allegory of synesthesia is a clever narrative hook that helps the great actors delve into grief and love.

Music has been an essential part of romance in cinema and in real-life; frankly, few relationships can withstand a total aural disparity. We see it with Tom Waits and Nina Simone of Bad Timing, Coldplay and The Shins in Garden State, and “As Time Goes By” in Casablanca (with Rick all but condemned to his memories; “play it again,” he says like a death wish). We see it with, well, everything in High Fidelity. Maybe it’s because music speaks the emotions so that we don’t have to; the unseen singer can lament or worship without embarrassment, and we can relate. Whatever the case may be, The Greatest Hits is obsessed with the idea.

The new film, which just premiered at South by Southwest, feels like a continuation of the romantic dramedies that were prolific at the turn of the millennium. The iPod had just been released in 2001, making music more intimate and personal than ever. As such, films like Garden State, Lost in Translation, (500) Days of Summer, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Juno, and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist featured carefully curated soundtracks, with characters often sharing each other’s music as an invitation to vulnerability or an act of commitment. The Greatest Hits lifts from all of these films, sometimes to an awkward degree (a Roxy Music song and a karaoke scene feels a little too Lost in Translation), but it certainly sticks its landing.

Despite having weakly developed characters, it’s a gripping, sweet, and emotional romance with excellent performances and, yes, a great soundtrack. The allegory of synesthesia, in which a sensory element can trigger a memory, is taken to its most literal and extreme degree here, which makes that great soundtrack important. In filmmaker Ned Benson’s The Greatest Hits, a woman is able to travel back in time to particular moments in her relationship with her dead boyfriend when she hears specific songs they listened to together. A music-evoked autobiographical memory is a great hook that speaks to grief, loss, and the inability to move on, a battle between hope and sadness elucidated by Dylan Thomas:

Though lovers be lost, love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.

Lucy Boynton Is Great in an Underdeveloped Character

The Greatest Hits (2024)

3.5/5

Release Date March 14, 2024

Director Ned Benson

Cast David Corenswet , Lucy Boynton , Retta , Justin H. Min , Rory Keane , Jackson Kelly , Andie Ju , Austin Crute

Runtime 87 Minutes

Writers Ned Benson

Pros

• Lucy Boynton and Justin H. Min are immaculate — you want to watch them succeed
• The Greatest Hits probably has the best soundtrack of 2024.
• Using synesthesia as an allegory is a clever hook.

Cons

• Underdeveloped characters pose a problem here, and the film is derivative of earlier classics.

Harriet (Lucy Boynton) works at a library and reads books alone at lunch. She wears her headphones practically all the time, except when she’s with her best friend, a DJ with a perfect loft who is always inviting her to interesting parties. She attends a grief support group and stays quiet. She drinks at home and sleeps in late when she can, but it doesn’t affect her beauty. Yes, she lives a life that only a writer could create, which is ultimately the most disappointing aspect of The Greatest Hits. Harriet feels like a romantic notion of a woman created by a man.

Searchlight Pictures

Poor Harriet. Let’s just say the film does not get an A+ on the Bechdel Test, with Harriet always either visiting her dead boyfriend, Max (David Corenswet), or developing a burgeoning relationship with David (Justin H. Min). Fortunately, Boynton is a tremendous actor, and the narrative hook of the film keeps things moving along at a wonderful speed to the extent that you forget how undeveloped this (and every) character actually is.

Boynton is a chameleonic actor who can really do anything; she locks into the desperation and melancholy of Harriet without ever overdoing it. She’s perfect, and certain close-ups of her face can break your heart or put it back together again.

And Then There’s Justin H. Min

Who is this man? Where did he come from? How is he so good? Justin H. Min plays David, someone Harriet meets at her support group. David’s parents have passed away, and he has been left with their shop and his sister. As two of the only young people in the group, they form a quick connection (through either some poor writing or the film’s version of fate) and, of course, connect through music (Roxy Music, that is).

Min is absolutely incredible at subtlety and softness. He can take something quiet, flat, or simple (as in here or in After Yang) and imbue it with so much poignancy; he can also perfectly tap into the ways in which rudeness and general assholery is so often obfuscated by sophistication or kindness (as in here or Beef). He’s great as a grieving man falling in love with a woman he soon comes to think is mentally unwell.

Related: How Justin H. Min Steals After Yang

However, like Harriet, David just isn’t characterized beyond his grief. Loss is the defining attribute of these two characters, and that’s about it. They’re silhouettes, and everything else we know about them feels like sketches. You can’t film a person listening to music and call it exposition, no matter how many times you try. At least the music is good, though.

The Greatest Hits of the Year

Like the Garden State soundtrack, the curated tunes of The Greatest Hits span decades and genres and yet capture a somewhat cohesive vibe. There’s a lot more hope and spunk in the songs from The Greatest Hits. Niki and the Dove’s “Play It on the Radio,” Yellow Days’ “Gap in the Clouds,” and Phoebe Bridgers’ rendition of “Friday I’m in Love” all serve their purpose, for instance, along with Beach House and Lana Del Rey. However, it’s nice to see a wider selection than just 2010s indie rock.

The film wisely opens with the optimistic 1983 banger from The The, “This Is the Day,” which is a genuinely pleasant surprise. The Roxy Music inclusion is also a nice surprise; while it reeks of that aforementioned Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson film, it’s nice to hear a remixed extended edition of their “I’d do Everything to Turn You On” here, an appropriately modern twist on a sexy classic.

Related: These Rom-Coms Had the Best Indie Soundtracks Ever

Probably the best track for the film’s purposes is the excellent “On Hold.” The XX perform the song at Bonnaroo or Coachella or one of those shindigs, and this is where Harriet met Max years ago, where it all began. It’s the most important interaction of the film, and it’s handled gorgeously. The lyrics achingly apply, as well:

I can’t hold on to an empty space

With the addition of some fun surprises like “Take Your Time (Do It Right)” by The S.O.S. Band, it’s safe to say that The Greatest Hits will have the best soundtrack of the year, which is legitimately important for a film which relies on music so much. Benson knows what he’s doing here, and the musical motifs all come together at the end for a genuinely moving tear-jerker of an ending that makes you forget about all the film’s flaws. Could The Greatest Hits be greater? Sure, but there are still some great hits here, especially where Boynton and Min are concerned. Be still, my beating heart.

From Searchlight Pictures, The Greatest Hits will be in theaters April 5th and then only on Hulu beginning April 12th.

You can view the original article HERE.