Power Ballad (2026)
The director of "Once" and "Sing Street" goes mainstream
Director John Carney rose to prominence with 2007’s Once, a true low-budget indie that drew widespread acclaim, won an Oscar (Best Original Song for “Falling Slowly”) and had since stayed in the hearts and minds of film and music fans alike.
His latest feature, Power Ballad, stays in Carney’s familiar lane in being built around music and mostly set in his home country, Ireland. But unlike Once and some of Carney’s work in the two decades since, Power Ballad is a big-budget production starring a pair of global stars, Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas, the former as an aging rocker named Rick who is hanging onto the memories of the short-lived quasi-stardom he gained more than 10 years earlier, and the latter as Danny, a young and uber-famous former boy bander trying to gain respect as a solo artist.
Rick, who gave up on his music dreams and settled down in Dublin with his wife (who he met on tour) and teenage daughter, now fronts a wedding band (the phenomenally named “The Bride and Groove”). He is constantly trying to dredge up memories of his heyday, much to the chagrin of his bandmates.
Rick’s band takes a gig at a wedding where it’s rumored that the former boy band star Danny will be in attendance, an old friend of the groom. The groom implores Rick to let Danny sing a song with the band, and the moment goes viral.
After the set, Rick and Danny run into one another and end up spending the night in Danny’s suite talking music and jamming, bonding over their shared love of the craft, riffing some songs they’re working on, and getting very, very drunk.
We go back to Los Angeles with Danny and are with him as he navigates the pressure from his label to write a new hit single. Desperate and afraid of losing his relevance, Danny starts tinkering with a song Rick played during their jam session, a power ballad (get it?) he wrote shortly after the birth of his daughter. The song makes Danny’s girlfriend cry, so Danny takes it as his own.
The rest, as they say, is history.
As Rick navigates his despair over not being credited with the song Danny has brought to No. 1 on the charts, his life falls apart. It’s this section in particular that drags. Rick, of course, has no record of having written the song, and Danny’s agent keeps brushing off his attempts to confront the young pop star over it. The same beats are hammered home over and over again throughout Rick’s attempts at getting the recognition he deserves, and at a certain point I found myself thinking “OK, we get it, let’s move on.” There’s an earnestness here and a legitimate attempt at relatability, but it mostly falls flat.
It would be unfair to Carney to simply chalk up what doesn’t work in Power Ballad to the mainstream nature of it. That would be simplistic and also do a disservice to Once and 2016’s Sing Street, which succeeded not simply because they were low-budget or starred actors lacking in the recognition of Rudd or Jonas, but because they had an overwhelming amount of heart, using music to connect the story to audiences.
Power Ballad attempts to do the same thing, but it just doesn’t resonate in quite the same way. It’s funny and sweet and at times very entertaining, but the story lacks the same kind of emotional punch. That’s of no fault to Rudd nor the less-seasoned Jonas, for whom this part was clearly specifically written and who gives a spirited effort opposite a comedic acting legend.
It doesn’t help that Power Ballad doesn’t quite have the same kind of knee-tapping music as some of Carney’s other work, either. The song at the center of the film is good, but in kind of a kitschy way. That’s partially the point, but it also doesn’t help you leave the theater humming it. Upon leaving the Music Box in Chicago following my screening, I instead found myself humming the familiar tunes played by the legendary Dennis Scott on the organ prior to the screening.
There’s a lot of fun to be had with Power Ballad. It’s a solid popcorn flick with plenty of entertaining moments. Just don’t go in expecting the same type of emotional connection you may have gotten with other Carney works and you’ll be fine.