Review: The Music Never Stopped

   
Directed by Jim Kohlberg
Rated PG
Runtime: 105 mins.

En español  |  Have you ever unexpectedly heard a once-cherished song and found yourself immediately transported back to some distant, random memory?

Most of us have — and that nearly universally acknowledged link between music and memory is the main reason why The Music Never Stopped, a charmer of an indie flick about a fractured family brought back together by music, works so much better than it has any right to.

A killer soundtrack of ’60s rock classics and a sterling central performance by the criminally underrated J.K. Simmons (who plays Dr. Emil Skoda in NBC’s Law and Order) certainly don’t hurt the movie’s chances for success, either. In fact, whenever first-time director Jim Kohlberg feels his uneven story listing off course — as it does more than once — he throws in a montage of Dylan, Dead and Beatles songs, or thrusts Simmons forward for a showcase scene. Kohlberg may be green behind the camera, but the man knows how to please a crowd.

The story jumps back and forth between the mid-1980s and the late 1960s, centering around Gabriel (Lou Taylor Pucci), an only child who runs away from his parents, Henry and Helen (Simmons and Cara Seymour), in 1967 as a 17-year-old rebellious boy and then reappears 18 years later as a disheveled, glassy-eyed 35-year-old man.

Upon his return, doctors discover a benign but massive tumor in his brain, the removal of which will likely cause significant brain damage. It does, stealing Gabriel’s short-term memory and severely limiting his long-term memory to things like his name and birthdate.

In flashbacks, we learn about the family’s shared love of music. Tensions arise as Gabriel’s teenage musical taste veers from Henry’s Bing Crosby records toward the Grateful Dead. Gabriel starts a band, grows his hair long. His old-school dad just doesn’t get it, man. There’s an awful fight. The son is ordered out of the house. He complies.

There’s a predictability to those flashbacks that doesn’t serve the movie very well. But the scenes in the movie’s present make up for it. Doctors find that music awakens Gabriel from his nearly catatonic state and may even help him build up his memory. But not just any music will do the trick — it has to be ’60s rock. How’s that for karma, Henry?