Essentially a dry run for LA LA LAND, but without the story beats, or the acting, or the colour…
That said, GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH works as a nice little film school project – which it was originally intended to be, before Damien Chazelle left Harvard to finish it off – and has some nice energy. Its biggest downfall is just a lack of a clear narrative. Instead it feels like a bunch of disparate scenes cobbled together.
But the real MVP here is Justin Hurwitz who really hit the ground running on the music side of things. I never thought I’d see this get a vinyl release, and it now takes pride of place next to my soundtracks for WHIPLASH, LA LA LAND, FIRST MAN, and BABYLON; my favourite composer / director partnership outside of John Williams and Steven Spielberg.
The whole vibe of Guy walking around in this film with his trumpet reminds me of one time I was at Glastonbury in the mid 2000s, pitching my tent up at the top of Pennard Hill on the Wednesday morning. A ginger kid a couple of tents away pulled out a trumpet and started blowing some jazzy licks. Wow, I thought. How nice is this? Five days later, it wasn’t as pleasurable to hear.
Hit: Overture
Hidden Gem: It Happened At Dawn
Vinyl Stylus 