Have you ever listened to song and been transported back to a time or event where it played? Maybe it was the first dance at your wedding, a song you listened to on a road trip with friends, or even your high school graduation. Music has a magical ability to “pull you back to some moment in time.” The Greatest Hits asks viewers to join Harriet on her journey song by song. As always, there are minor spoilers, so read on with caution if you’re wanting a spoiler-free experience.
In The Greatest Hits, “Harriet (Lucy Boynton) finds art imitating life when she discovers certain songs can transport her back in time – literally. While she relives the past through romantic memories of her former boyfriend (David Corenswet), her time-traveling collides with a burgeoning new love interest in the present (Justin H. Min). As she takes her journey through the hypnotic connection between music and memory, she wonders – even if she could change the past, should she?”
As I start talking about what worked for me and what didn’t, I should come clean and admit that I’m not a huge fan of science fiction. Perhaps due to that bias, the science-fiction elements of The Greatest Hits didn’t work for me. They felt like a bit of an afterthought. It isn’t as though the writers didn’t explain the “how” but it didn’t feel effortless in its storytelling. The time traveling is just brushed over as something that happens, no biggie. The elements used felt inspired by The Butterfly Effect but without some of the elements that gave the audience the feeling that something bigger was at stake. This hurts the movie in that there is not a lot of tension but at the same time helps it because you can invest in other aspects of the film.
Where this film excels in how it handles grief. Unlike a lot of films currently being made, it discusses this topic in a meaningful way without becoming a total punch to the gut. That doesn’t mean it’s without emotion, but instead, it tempers it. Grief can make it hard to move on from the past. As someone who has lost both parents, I’ve experienced this. You want to keep the memory of the person you lost alive but sometimes in your effort to do so, you stop making new memories. The film explores this beautifully and Harriet’s struggle is not an unfamiliar one.
The way that David handles himself and the relationship he builds with Harriet is another highlight. He doesn’t diminish her actions. He makes efforts to understand her and not “other” her. The scene where they go to the silent dance party (where everyone is also wearing earphones) is special because it showcases this. When Harriet finds the record she is looking for at David’s house, she asks him to “suspend your disbelief for me… for us…” and he does. It felt as though the writers knew how it feels when you are grieving to find someone who doesn’t want to fix you and make you “get over it” quicker.
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about the music of the film. It plays a very important role in The Greatest Hits and doesn’t disappoint. When discussing the score, composer Ryan Lott said, “I loved working on this film with Ned, our second together. He’s so receptive to the emotional resonances that music creates inside him and stays in tune with those frequencies. His insights allowed me to remain intuitive throughout, even when many of the things the score had to accomplish were quite technical. While our protagonist experiences a different kind of metaphysical impact of music in her life than I do, it’s akin to the transporting inebriation that I’ve always felt from music. Scoring those experiences to capture that kind of heightened, altered state, weaving between and within great songs by other artists, was its own transporting experience for me.“ I can see myself listening to this one regularly. You can find it over on Spotify and give it a listen yourself
The Greatest Hits is a sweet watch and worth checking out if that type of movie is your jam. It is now streaming on Hulu!
My rating: 3.5/5
