You cannot fake authenticity. If a performance seems insincere or fake, an audience can tell almost immediately. This is the fundamental miscalculation in Dandelion, a contemporary drama that has little understanding about current music or show business. Writer and director Nicole Riegel asks us to accept a singer/songwriter protagonist who is not a convincing singer, performer or lyricist. Nearly every scene is inauthentic, right down to its anti-climax, and the tedium of the film ultimately gives way to downright anger.
Kiki Layne plays Dandelion, a guitarist and singer who makes ends meet by playing three nights a week in a posh Cincinnati restaurant. Her first song is a cover of Gin Blossoms’ “Hey Jealousy,” and her interpretation ignores the song’s jittery excitement, replacing it with something more languid and lifeless. Our immediate impression is that Dandelion barely deserves this gig—let alone a regular spot at an open mic night—yet the film insists she is a great musician who is simply denied opportunity after opportunity. Dandelion is disgusted by the idea of working a regular job because that would mean she cannot fully commit to her music—the first of many deep misunderstandings of how artists actually live. After the obligatory “you don’t understand my art” argument between Dandelion and her mother (Melanie Nicholls-King), she leaves Cincinnati for a biker convention in South Dakota where there will be lots of opportunities to perform.
But why a biker convention in South Dakota? Why not Austin, Nashville, Los Angeles or New York? Riegel hand-waves away these legitimate questions because the picturesque setting gives her the opportunity to shoot the state during the magical light of golden hour (Riegel borrows heavily from Terrence Malick). Shortly after arriving at the convention, Dandelion strikes up a friendship with Casey (Thomas Doherty), another singer who has moderately more success. They start collaborating on songs, and before long, Dandelion finds herself in a community of musicians for whom artistic expression is more important than anything else. No one in this scene has ever argued with a venue owner over how much of a cut they get for a gig because, in their minds, any concerns like that are impure.
As are most films about musicians, Dandelion is rife with clichés. There is the big scene where our hero solves all her problems with a performance and another where her mother apologizes for not wanting Dandelion to pursue her dream. There is nothing inherently wrong with clichés and familiar scenes—we see them often because they are effective—but the problem is that Dandelion never convinces us that the hero is worthy of them. The film’s music is boring and anemic, the kind of stuff you might hear on a Spotify playlist while waiting for the dentist.
It is surprising Bryce and Aaron Dessner—the brothers behind the National and many Taylor Swift songs—wrote music for this film. Unlike the recent remake of A Star Is Born, no one who sees Dandelion will remember a single lyric from the movie, let alone an entire song. Then again, the Dessner brothers’ output can veer into bland Dad Rock, causing the film to lose all semblance of verisimilitude. By the time Dandelion and Casey have their inevitable falling-out, it barely registers as a sad development because it does not feel like a reflection of human nature.
Layne can be a compelling actor. She was heartbreaking in If Beale Street Could Talk and a commanding action star in The Old Guard. After this film, though, she should fire her agent. This film is not her failing, however, and the responsibility falls entirely on Riegel, who does not seem to know any singers, session players or songwriters in real life. It never occurred to her that building a fanbase nowadays requires social media, to say nothing of yeoman’s work like standing outside a venue to hand out fliers. She does not realize that many successful musicians also have day jobs, whether those entail working at a bar, a law firm or giving music lessons. Instead, Dandelion labors in the kind of fantasy where talent and artistic purity, not perseverance, is all her hero needs. What a catastrophic insult to anyone, successful or not, who puts in the work to pursue their creative dreams.
Photo courtesy of IFC Films
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