The movie follows the life of Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant) many years after the break-up of his famous boy band from the late 80's. Alex is seemingly happy with his afterlife doing small time gigs and kicking back and taking it easy.

Suddenly Alex discovers through his agent Chris (Brad Garrett) that even his small annual gigs are drying up and his only chance to stay in the game is to follow up a huge new opportunity with current pop idol princess, Cora Corman (Haley Bennett) who quickly wants a get-back-together song.

Fletcher, having written his own abysmally failing CD, realises that while he can competently write the music for the song, cannot write the right lyrics.

In steps Sophie (Drew Barrymore) who happens to have a knack for completing great poetic lines of lyrics.

However, Sophie is dealing with problems of her own and only reluctantly decides to help Alex with his song.

Music and Lyrics is an entertaining romantic comedy that never really kicks into high gear and just floats along. Drew plays the appealing girl as she always does, and it works; however, I think that Hugh’s character probably could have been played more interestingly by just about any other decent male actor.

I find that Haley is the real stand out in this film as Cora Corman, the diminuative pop princess, and does an A grade job in her role as the powerful little diva who always gets what she wants.

It’s really Hugh’s lacklustre performance that relegates this film to its B grade status.

~ CH