The movie itself can’t quite pull off the same kind of trick. They provide sweet reminders of the giddy delight of good bad popular music.
The songs, composed for the film by Adam Schlesinger, are affectionate tributes to the MTV fodder of the present and (mostly) the past. Alex, who earns a decent if humiliating living performing his old hits (and semi-sexy dance moves) on the fairground and class-reunion circuit, has a shot at a comeback, thanks to a teenage pop-tart named, of all things, Cora (Haley Bennett).Īpart from Cora, the secondary characters are more perfunctory than inspired, though Kristen Johnston has some juicy, unhinged moments as Sophie’s older sister, whose fan-crush on Alex has hardly cooled since the mid-’80s, despite marriage and motherhood. Or, at least, a hummable, ticky-tacky pop tune. Grant’s opposite number is Drew Barrymore, playing a lovable flake named Sophie who arrives at Alex’s Upper West Side apartment and sticks around to help him make beautiful music. Grant), shows some imagination as he parodies the music-video styles of various eras, and he contrives a bit of novelty in making the movie’s central couple creative partners as well as potential lovers.
The writer and director, Marc Lawrence (“Two Weeks Notice,” also starring Mr. “Music and Lyrics,” in contrast, is the type of modern Hollywood production that aspires to nothing more than the competent dispensing of mild amusement and easy emotion. Before Hugh Grant, for instance there was another Grant, Cary, who was always reliably himself and who enjoyed the good fortune of working with some of Hollywood’s finest directors, from Howard Hawks to Alfred Hitchcock. After all, the movie stars of old delighted their fans by inhabiting the same basic persona in role after role. There is no shame in this kind of consistency or predictability. He stammers articulately, ducks his head coyly to one side and ornaments his line readings with cute qualifications and digressions, as in: “We have tonight, the morning and just the teeniest little bit of the afternoon.” Sandy Wexler is stuck in limbo between Sandler's more committed turns, as if the goal was to produce the perfect Netflix background viewing.Playing Alex Fletcher, a semi-washed-up British pop star whose heyday was in the haircut-band ’80s, Hugh Grant, one of the stars of “Music and Lyrics,” delivers a reasonably convincing impersonation of, well, Hugh Grant. The "bits" are few and far between, and the interim manages to counter everything good (Hudson's voice) with something not so good (Sandler's wacky-dacky-doo voice). At one point, Sandy has a heart attack and his ventriloquist client (Kevin James) must Weekend at Bernie's his way through a pitch meeting. Quincy Jones throws red wine in Sandy's face. Every so often Nick Swardson's Evel Knievel wannabe crashes into food cart or a famous person shows up for a wacky cameo. Sandy Wexler, the third vehicle in Sandler's Netflix deal, is a kind-hearted, underdog story that follows the worst manager in Hollywood as he helps angelic soul singer Courtney Clarke (Jennifer Hudson) take off. For all the race-, gender-, and buffoon-baiting comedy in Sandler's modern repertoire, his most insufferable move is delivering a boring movie.