“Old Town Road,” “Bad Guy” and “Truth Hurts” may have been the songs of the summer, but the cinema is giving Spotify and radio airwaves a run for their money. Creating competing earworms are films that are imbued with the sounds and artists that unite populations across generations, from baby boomers to Gen Z. And after you get your movie ticket, take a seat in the cool theater and sing along (hopefully just in your head), you find yourself going to a record store to buy the featured music on vinyl or Apple Music to stream it through your iPhone. From the big-screen adaptation of of the ABBA musical “Mama Mia!” and last year’s sequel “Mama Mia! Here We Go Again,” to the Al Pacino film “Danny Collins” featuring John Lennon tunes, more movies are using the popular music of beloved idols as major plotlines.
Last week, “Blinded by the Light” brought the sounds of Bruce Springsteen to film audiences. Gurinder Chadha, the director of “Bend It Like Beckham” and “Bride and Prejudice,” takes a true-life story about a Pakistani teenager who is inspired by The Boss. Newcomer Viveik Kalra plays Javed, a highschooler in England who wants to become a writer. It has all the elements of a typical 1980s teen movie — big hair, Walkmans, denim jackets and loud-patterned outfits. Javed faces a double-edged sword of a life, with his father Malik (Kulvinder Ghir) wanting him to live a straight-edge, traditional life and the outside world where he encounters racist attacks. Things get worse when Malik loses his factory job, and the family must band together to make up for it.
Enter Springsteen. A classmate introduces Javed to two of The Boss’ albums. When Javed loads one of them into his Walkman, the lyrics literally come to life for him. The songs get a bit of a Bollywood twist in some cases, with the cast singing odes like “I Never Knew Music Could Be Like That” and “You, Me… and Bruce.” It elevates Springsteen’s tunes to a new level. Plus, Academy Award-winning composer A.R. Rahman, best known by Western audiences for his work for “Slumdog Millionaire,” adds original music to the soundtrack, and a previously unreleased Springsteen songs rounds out the tunes.
“Blinded By the Light” is not the only 2019 movie using music that inspired millions. Earlier this summer, director Danny Boyle created a world without the Beatles in “Yesterday.” Starring Himesh Patel and Lily James, Jack (Patel) is the only person in the world who has heard of one of the greatest bands of all time. Even Google doesn’t have an entry for Paul, John, George and Ringo. Relying on his memory and love for the Fab Four, Jack claims their hits as his own and becomes the world’s biggest singer/songwriter — even bigger than Ed Sheeran. While “Blinded By The Light” shows how music speaks to a teen who has a different background from Springsteen, “Yesterday” illustrates how different the world is when the inspiration never existed. Patel is the primary singer of all the Beatles’ hits in this film, from the title song to “Help!” to “The Long and Winding Road.”
Later this year, the songs of George Michael and Wham! will be part of the holiday magic of “Last Christmas.” The British romantic comedy stars Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh and Emma Thompson. Paul Feig, the director of “Bridesmaids,” helms this flick and Thompson is one of the co-writers. Kate (Clarke) is not full of the holiday spirit, despite working as a department store elf. However, she keeps bumping into Tom (Golding), who changes her outlook. The trailer released last week was heavy with Michael’s angelic voice, and it has the feel of a better-than-average Hallmark Channel Christmas movie. “Last Christmas” will be released in November with an accompanying book of essays on the meaning of Christmas for sale.
