Metacritic reviews

The film emerges as a powerful, even shattering look as music's power to unite where it once divided.

Unpretentious and unexpectedly moving.

An effectively emotional look at the power of music therapy to trigger memories lost after brain surgery.

The novel premise and otherwise nuanced performances are enough to hold attention.

In key spots, thanks to Simmons' brilliantly wounded gruffness and Pucci's nimble toggling act between vacancy and awakened spirit, The Music Never Stopped achieves an admirable poignancy about our emotional, healing relationship to the songs we love.

Often static and follows a familiar trajectory. Yet it has power, partly because Simmons does a fine job of showing how hurt Henry is that his taste didn't imprint on Gabe beyond grade school; what was their music became, simply, dad's music.

In a rare leading role, character actor Simmons is saddled with the entirety of the film's diagrammatic emotional arc, briskly (and tediously) about-facing on matters of fatherhood, activism, and guitar rock, while a too-boyish Pucci is fatally unconvincing as a former band leader.

The Music Never Stopped isn't exactly good, but it's definitely better than you fear it is when you reach the halfway mark.

The songs and a couple of strong performances are only good enough to make the film watchable, not exceptional.

These kinds of disease-fueled dramas already tend to be soap-operatic, but Kohlberg isn't taking any chances; by the time father and son end up at a Dead show in matching tie-dyed outfits, the director has aggressively, insistently overplayed audience heartstrings like Jerry Garcia in a long-winded solo.