Filmmaker Nicole Riegel follows up her quietly acclaimed 2020 debut Holler with Dandelion (now on Hulu), starring If Beale Street Could Talk star KiKi Layne as a singer-songwriter who has yet to truly find her voice. Riegel applies her indie-grit aesthetic to a low-key musical this time, recruiting Aaron and Bryce Dessner of rock band The National to pen songs specifically for the film â and the question here is whether Dandelion is the movie equivalent of a song that really hooks you with a melody, or just one thatâs pleasant to hum along to.
DANDELION: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: You gotta give it to Dandelion (Layne) â she gives a little extra oomph to her cover of âHey Jealousyâ that livens it up a little for those of us who heard the song 10,000 times during the â90s, and gently sighed out of annoyance the last 9,998 times. If only her audience was listening even 10 percent as closely as we are. She strums and sings in front of a handful of indifferent cocktail-sippers in what appears to be a hotel bar where the lighting is more Welcome KMart Shoppers than The Gaslight Cafe. Dandelion finishes the song, is asked to make an announcement about a car parked in the loading zone, then, if I may make a modest logical leap, almost certainly wonders what sheâs doing with her life. She surely contemplates the state of her emotional and pragmatic selves while sitting in a beautifully photographed shot of a bridge in her hometown of Cincinnati, strumming a guitar and working out lyrics to a new song.
Dandelion appears to be at a tipping point. She has a gorgeous Gibson Les Paul that she sells out of necessity. She lives with her mother, Jean (Melanie Nicholls-King), who has an illness of the kind that requires an oxygen tank. So of course Dandelion gets angry when she catches her mother smoking a cigarette right after she hocked her beloved guitar to pay the bills for a woman who doesnât seem to want to take care of herself. Dandelionâs frustration boils over on âstageâ at the bar, and you wonât be surprised to see her âaudienceâ not even notice when she walks out mid-song. She hops in her car and impulsively takes a road trip to a South Dakota biker rally, where she plans to throw her chips in a pot for a battle of the bands competition, the winner of which will score an opening slot for the rallyâs Saturday night headliner, which isnât revealed, although Iâd guess itâs either BTO or Buckcherry, but hopefully not Kid Rock.
Itâs dicey all around, is what Iâm saying. Dandelion sleeps in her car and wanders through the grounds, her discomfort on full display as a Black woman who sings sensitive singer-songwriter stuff with an acoustic guitar, amidst a zillion leather-clad biker types. As for her shot on stage, by herself, strumming and singing? Well, letâs just say it goes poorly. But she does end up meeting a sensitive Scottish bloke named Casey (Thomas Doherty), who folds her into the collective unit that is the band Brother Elsey, who give me Zac Brown or Avett Bros. vibes. Campfires and singing, sometimes at the same time, follow. Not unexpectedly, Dandelion and Casey end up making sweet music together with their instruments, and yes, thatâs a euphemism, but also a literalism, which is how it goes with a romantic sort-of-musical about songwriters. But where will their relationship go? Thatâs the question.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Riegel taps into the John Carney bittersweet love story/musical formula, not too far removed from the new classic Once and 2023âs delightful Flora and Son.
Performance Worth Watching: Layne clearly gives her heart to Dandelion despite its dubious worthiness. She maintains her poise and dedication to the character through some awkward tryhard material.
Memorable Dialogue: A playing-hard-to-get first meeting:
Casey: Whatâs your name, by the way?
Dandelion: Dandelion.
Casey: No!
Dandelion: Thatâs the name Iâm giving you.
Sex and Skin: A couple of sex scenes that look hotter than they feel, unfortunately.
Our Take: I remain convinced that convincingly depicting the act of songwriting in a movie is impossible. Always with the vague humming of a vague melody and dropping the pick to scribble words on paper and then gently strumming a chord, and then the frustrating crumpling of the paper and tossing it followed by the head-tilted-back-eyes-closed-long-exhalation routine that tells us itâs time to start over. If this is how it works in real life, thatâs fine â I remain unconvinced it is â but putting it on film always seems hokey and contrived. The spontaneous collaboration we saw between Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard in Once is the rare instance where it works, the music sparked by the chemistry of the performers and their unspoken mutual romantic attraction â which bloomed into a real-life romance, which might just explain why the film was such an emotional powerhouse.
Which is a long way of saying Dandelion spins its tires a bit, trying to make this uphill climb. Dandelion yearns to be in that microscopic sliver of the population that makes money as a singer/songwriter, and Riegel has her walking the thin line between dream and delusion, once going so far as to state this outright: âChasing dreams is hard,â Dandelion says with forthright obviousness, as if the point hadnât been driven home by multiple instances of her struggle. The dialogue-by-Hallmark (âThank you for allowing me to dream again,â Casey mutters in Dandelionâs general direction) clashes with the lovely impressionist visuals of Badlands scenery, where Dandelion seems destined to either crash on the ruggedly beatuiful rock formations, or use them as inspiration to find herself and her voice. Thatâs essentially the storyâs dramatic arc, illustrated in a hammer-to-anvil dead-obvious bit of symbolism: a shot of dandelions in the grass, closed up and waiting to bloom.
Thankfully, and in spite of the filmâs depiction of cute dates between Casey and Dandelion â camping among the rocks, busking with their friends, going to a prairie dog petting farm, eventually laying around in an RV wearing nothing but a guitar working out some so-so songs â this isnât an icky traditionalist romance where it takes a boy to inspire the girl to be something. But the film is overly earnest, and tries too hard to be profoundly melancholy, its characters lacking the depth needed for its bittersweetness to linger on the tongue. Itâs often flat, airless and humorless, and moves at too languid of a pace. There isnât enough chemistry between Layne and Doherty to inspire our own yearning for whatever you might be yearning for â a lost love or opportunity maybe. Ultimately, despite its sincere intentions, Dandelion doesnât inspire much more than the passing sadness equivalent to losing your second-favorite earring.
Our Call: Dandelion boasts lovely intentions but is lackluster in execution. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Dandelion’ on Hulu, an Overly Earnest Musical Romance Starring KiKi Layne appeared first on Decider.
