Dollar Tree Cinema: Moonlight Serenade

“Moonight Serenade” (2009)
Starring Amy Adams, Alec Newman, Harriet Sansom Harris, Joey DeFrancesco
Directed by Giancarlo Tallarico
Written by Jonathan Abrahams and Giancarlo Tallarico
Rated PG-13 for brief sexuality and some thematic material

Let's get this out of the way right up front: I adore Amy Adams.

That's not all that shocking; she is adorable. But lots of people in Hollywood are attractive. I appreciate her ability to handle drama and comedy with equal earnestness and improve the quality of almost any project she's in. There are exceptions. Avoid “Nocturnal Animals.” If you can get past the opening credits, which earn the R rating all by themselves, you'll be “treated” to a well-acted, incredibly depressing movie, that even Amy Adams can't lighten.*

But she drew me to the Muppets reboot more than the Muppets themselves. Her presence can get me to watch a first contact movie like “Arrival” that I otherwise never would have given a second look – and a good thing too, because that movie is flat-out amazing.

That's not what I'm writing about today, although I did spy it, on Blu ray no less, at a Dollar Tree once. I wanted to go with a movie I hadn't seen, which led me to “Moonlight Serenade.” I think I'd heard of it at some point, but the reasons I have it were simply 1) it was at Dollar Tree and 2) it stars Amy Adams.

And even if you're not as big a fan as I am, Adams is the draw here in what seems to be, more or less, a low-budget Hallmark movie.

That sounds more dismissive than I mean it to be. I have family members who enjoy Hallmark movies, and I get the comfort food appeal. My issue is not the material itself, but the repetitiveness. Twice in the space of a week or so while visiting my grandmother, there was a Hallmark movie on in the background featuring a man and woman juggling careers and failing romances while being cutely thrown together in Hawaii – different movies with different casts.

“Moonlight Serenade” starts out focused on Nate Holden (Newman), a financial adviser or stockbroker who unwinds by playing piano and singing, usually while still in full suit and tie. It's his way of reconnecting with positive memories from his childhood after a day spent making money by betting which companies are going to fail. His righthand woman is Angelica, a friend of his late mother played by Harriet Sansom Harris, who I guarantee you've seen in multiple things, but mentioning she was in “Werewolf by Night” gets in my requisite Marvel reference.

When Nate's not tickling the ivories himself, he listens to his pal Frank D (DeFrancesco, also the film's composer) play at a club. After declining Frank's invitation to hear the club's coat check girl, Chloe, perform until he realizes it's Adams, the woman who joined him in an impromptu duet of “When I Fall in Love” when she heard him singing through his open window. At first put off by Nate's rudeness, Chloe agrees to sing with him after her piano player and boyfriend Jesse stands her up at a performance due to his struggles with drug addiction. And soon it's clear their harmonies are more than vocal.

It's a simple, predictable story, which wouldn't be bad if most of the cast outside Adams didn't sound like they were reading the script instead of performing it. And there's not much meat on the simple bones of the story, just some good but not overly memorable music.

The budget was apparently pretty low, as the scenes and sets feel put together with the bare minimum actors and props. Nate's firm doesn't appear as prestigious as it's supposed to be, and the club doesn't seem to be anything more than a hole in the wall.

Despite the drug-related subject matter, the movie really only strays beyond PG territory with a completely unnecessary and unintentionally awkward bedroom scene. And the DVD's only subtitles are in Spanish.**

This is obviously a musical, but it's not always clear what kind. Remember “Dreamgirls?” I thought it was a movie about people singing until characters started singing at times when it made no sense. There's a scene in “Moonlight Serenade” where Nate and Chloe are singing a duet in different parts of the city. And then Angelica has a solo. At the office.

I probably should have seen it coming since Nate, when singing in his apartment, sounds produced. There's even percussion and horns when he's playing piano by himself. Adams sounds like someone singing impromptu (but excellently) on the “When I Fall in Love” moment, but like she's on an album everywhere else. Sure, most people sound produced when singing in movies, because they are. But there's not enough going on with the rest of this movie to distract you from how weird it feels here.

“Moonlight Serenade” is not unpleasant at all. It just feels like something in which you wouldn't expect to see an actress of Adams' stature. It was a bit earlier in her career but was released the same year as “Doubt,” for which she earned her second Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Maybe they cast her before she hit it really big. But even a veteran actress like Harris, a familiar face if not a star, seems like she would have bigger and better options.

* - Nor should she, given the subject matter. There just aren't enough pros to outweigh the considerable cons.

** - Yes, I can hear the dialogue. But years of trying to watch shows and movies while hoping young children didn't wake up have gotten me to rely on subtitles.