As a general rule, I love crappy 90s movies starring 80s has-beens, so I had particularly high hopes for Face The Music. It has a dream cast with Molly Ringwald, the 80s poster child herself, and Patrick "I expose my buttocks a lot" Dempsey. It is a musical drama, a genre always loaded with cult potential. It even has a bloated Molly Ringwald lying around on a piano, miming to bad country music. And yet, Face The Music is still a pretty dismal affair.
The story is ridiculous. Molly plays Lisa, a singer/songwriter working in a Parisian club. Patrick is Charlie, a songwriter who discovers Lisa. After re-writing one of Lisa's terrible songs, Lisa is an overnight success and Charlie asks her to marry him at an awards ceremony. They live happily on a boat until Charlie sends a song to a rival singer. The film picks up three years later when Lisa's manager brings them together to write a song for a movie despite the fact that Charlie is about to get married to Julie, another familiar 80s face Lysette Anthony.
The film really goes down hill when Lisa moves into Julie's farmhouse to write with Charlie. Lisa and Julie take turns acting like a shrew, while Charlie keeps mumbling about "feeling the music". The assistant Donnie, who I assume was intended to be comedic relief, wanders around the farm like an idiot. Even the music contained in the film is bad, the song they come up with about catching rainbows is unspeakably horrendous.
Face The Music is a disappointment but not a complete waste of time. It's always fun to watch Molly, even if she does spend most of the film walking around in a very unflattering bath towel. Patrick Dempsey looks a bit bored but shows some of the appeal that has kept him working in films for the past 20 years without a starring role in a box office hit to his credit.
This movie is incredibly mediocre but it could have been worse. It could have been "Glitter". Fans of Molly and Patrick will find something to enjoy here.
