Press Play
A manic pixie dream of a movie with a cool premise, ultimately unravelled by a messy ending.
Laura (Clara Ruugard), a painter who plies her art on an array of picturesque Hawaiian beaches, starts dating her friend's stepbrother, Harrison (Lewis Pullman). Their love story is cut short, however, when a tragic accident befalls Harrison. Bereft, grief stricken and heartbroken, Laura turns to a mixtape her music store guru boyfriend left her before he died, only to discover that playing it acts as a portal in time; giving her the length of a song to go back in time, and try and change the outcome of her tragic love life.
Directed by Greg Bjorkman, Press Play is a time-hopping film grounded in a slew of music hits. It’s a movie that’s undoubtedly going to appeal to a youthful, hipster-nostalgic generation, who reach for vintage as a sign of divergence from the mainstream. But it’s also a film that fails to make an impact that sets it apart in a world where we’ve seen similar pieces - at least from the romance and vintage aesthetic perspective - before.
The thing that obviously sets this apart from fare like The Broken Hearts Gallery is the time travel aspect. It’s a cool conceit, and certainly starts out interesting and fun. But as the film progresses, the films handle on the material starts to slip. The creative team certainly isn’t the one to solve any time travel paradoxes with this cassette tape themed time travel piece, so it’s probably to be expected; but ultimately, the focus is in all the wrong places. It leads to an ending that is deeply unsatisfying, and that bends over backwards to tie up all the plot threads as rapidly as possible.
From a performance perspective, the film is generally fine. Clara Ruugard is enigmatic and engaging, and can certainly carry the movie; her chemistry with Lewis Pullman (he of Top Gun: Maverick fame) is also palpable, and Pullman further cements his up and coming star status. There’s a small role for Danny Glover, who despite being relatively underused, is always a joy to see on screen. And then the rest of the cast sort of fade into the background amongst a cliched swathe of bit parts.
Visually, and musically, there’s a lot to love also. Set in Hawaii, and infused with a soundtrack of certified bangers, the movie is easy enough to sink into. Ultimately, what hurts the film is its lack of breathing room. This is a fantastical and ridiculous concept, but the movie is so obsessed with the mechanics of the time travel and the lead character, it neglects all the little moments of joy, and all the side characters, in its one track pursuit of a goal it could never achieve. While the film is undoubtedly plenty of fun, it’s also unable to cement itself as anything more than a one-play track.
