"Maybe if I had plants, I’d still be married"

I’ve been living with a shadow, over head
I’ve been sleeping with a cloud, above my bed
I’ve been lonely for so long
Trapped in the past, I just can’t seem to move on

I’ve been hiding all my hopes and dreams away
Just in case I ever need them again someday
I’ve been setting aside time
To clear a little space in the corners of my mind

-“Way Back into Love”, OST Music & Lyrics

The 1^st time I saw Music and Lyrics was sometime in the 1st quarter of this year. And my heart was captured from the moment they sang

“I said I wasn’t gonna lose my head but then POP goes my heart,
I wasn’t gonna fall in love again but then POP goes my heart...
And I just can’t let you go, I can’t lose this feeling!”

It was sooo retro, I jus loved it! The movie can’t really be “classified” as a great movie, nut it has these amazing dialogues and these super retro / popsy songs like “Pop goes my heart” and “Way back into love”. Well, I have watched the movie many many times after that. I was just listening to “POP!” right now, and that’s when I thought, “Hey, lots of people out there haven’t even heard of this movie”. And that’s what brings me to the keyboard today, when actually I should be visiting the doctor like I promised to my family, most of my friends and my colleagues (who actually threatened that I will not be allowed to come for the trip this week if I don’t get better!). ok, first this, then I meet the doc, k?

When the movie started, I was all enthusiastic, but what made me really “fall” for this movie was the dialogue that follows. Its from the scene where Hugh Grant and his manager (Brad Garrett, from the “I love Raymond” show) are talking about why Hugh keeps plants.

HG: Well I had date come over once and she said that she finds plants soothing.
BG: Maybe if I had plants, I’d still be married.
HG: Ya. What broke your marriage was not your wife’s raging nymphomania, but your lack of vegetation.

And I love what Drew says when she gets the lyricist Hugh hired really angry. (lets call him the Indian guy)

Sophie: I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten involved. I have no filtering system.
(hmmm.. I should remember that the next time I put my foot in my mouth)

Or this

Alex: The best time I've had in the last fifteen years was sitting at that piano with you.
Sophie: That's wonderfully sensitive... especially from a man who wears such tight pants.
Alex: It forces all the blood to my heart.

Or when the ‘Indian guy’ acts as if he’s shooting himself in the head in the concert when he realizes that Cora sings the song the ‘correct way’.

Or this, when Sophie’s sister, Rhonda, is cautioning her to be careful and only go on with Alex if she’s sure he’s passionate about her

Sophie: And besides, how do you know he’s passionate?
Rhonda: I think, I think you just see it in their eyes, feel it in their touch, or in Gary’s case (her husband) when h said to his mother “I’m marrying her anyway”.

Or (one of my faves) when Alex and Sophie finish the song and they are trying to catch a cab before Cora leaves.

Alex: [Hails taxi] She's going to have a baby!
Sophie: [Taxi continues driving away] Hey! What if it were true?

These short dialogues and the songs in it are what make this movie so close to my heart! And please, please, please listen to them…

And for those who haven’t seen the movie yet, here’s what the story is.

Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant) is this old guy who used to be a pop star, of a band named POP! (no less :P ). Well he’s just trying to make a living by doing whatever gigs he can, which by the way are just singing his old songs at reunions and theme-parks. Then he gets this awesome chance to sing with Cora, the latest sensation in the music world. But there’s a catch: he has to compose a song for her in a week. Plus, the song has to be called “Way back into love”. But there’s no pressure of course

He ends up asking Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore), the girl who is temporarily taking care of his plants, to help him out, because she has this amazing ability to come up with rhyming lines. (Kind of like Fatty in “The Five Find-outers”). Sophie and Alex stay up for hours and think about lyrics for the song. Some of the best lines come up here. I especially loved this one:

Alex: It doesn't have to be perfect. Just spit it out. They're just lyrics.
Sophie: "Just lyrics"?
Alex: Lyrics are important. They're just not as important as melody.
Sophie: I really don't think you get it.
Alex: Oh. You look angry. Click your pen.
Sophie: A melody is like seeing someone for the first time. The physical attraction. Sex.
Alex: I so get that.
Sophie: But then, as you get to know the person, that's the lyrics. Their story. Who they are underneath. It's the combination of the 2 that makes it magical.

They do write the song in time, but the movie also gives us insights into their lives. Like how Sophie has low self-esteem because her literature teacher broke her heart and then went on to write a book about her being a needy person. Which surprisingly enough won a National book award. And about how Alex is at such a low point in his virtually non-existent career that he even thinks of considering joining “The Battle of the 80s Has-Beens”, where the old singers fight and the winner gets a chance to sing!

Anyways, getting back to the main plot, Cora loves the song, but turns the popsy number into something “steamy and sticky” with Indian sitars in the background! Plus she says she needs one more stanza to the song. Alex and Sophie fight about the portrayal of the song, because Sophie thinks that it spoils the whole mood, but Alex thinks that they should just do whatever Cora wants as long as they get the part. Well this makes them part! Alex goes to make excuses about the last (unwritten) stanza, when Cora says that Sophie had already faxed them over.

The concert starts off with one of the steamy Britney/Christina “oh this skimpy thing IS a dress” kind of songs. Then comes the announcement that there will be a special song by “Alex Fletcher” (no “Sophie Fisher”!!) and Sophie feels betrayed and starts to walk off. And that’s when she realizes that this is a different song! Something touching, called "Don't Write Me Off" (cheesy, but so goes with the mood). Well they end up patching up, Cora sings “Way back into love” they way it was originally composed and everyone lives happily ever after.

(Hey, it’s a feel-good movie, how else do you expect it to end?)

I’d recommend it for the times when you jus want to curl up in your bed, munch some popcorn and have a few laughs and generally feel good :)

P.S. If you do end up watching the movie after reading this, and still dont like it, don't clobber me, coz i just got paid $1000 by Warner Bros. for writing this (just kidding!)