The Films of Brett Haley

The Ridge

The New Year

I'll See You in My Dreams

The Hero

Hearts Beat Loud (July 3/18)

A compulsively (and increasingly) watchable piece of work, Hearts Beat Loud follows curmudgeonly record-shop owner Frank Fisher (Nick Offerman) as he and his daughter (Kiersey Clemons' Sam) create a song with mainstream potential during a regular jam session. It's an appealingly low-key premise that's employed to entertaining and often engrossing effect by filmmaker Brett Haley, as the director, along with cowriter Marc Basch, delivers an admittedly lackadaisical narrative that benefits substantially from a pair of almost unreasonably charming central performances and a smattering of hypnotically compelling sequences - with, in terms of the latter, the initial creation of the aforementioned song certainly as magical and stirring as one might've hoped. (And, as far as the former is concerned, both Offerman and Clemons manage to transform their respective protagonists into wholeheartedly sympathetic and three-dimensional figures worth caring about and rooting for.) There's little doubt, too, that Hearts Beat Loud grows more and more captivating as it progresses, with the picture building to a tremendously satisfying final stretch that boasts an engaging and emotionally resonant mini concert - which ultimately does secure the film's place as an effective (and frequently affecting) little indie.