The High Note review – a tired genre that plays like an average greatest hits album hit that note

The High Note is really just about the same old story you see in almost any romantic drama nowadays. Its main goal is not to do anything different. All it wants to do is entertain you with, really, pure escapism. This will hit the right notes with casual fans, maybe even a few hardcore ones. The issue is it is nothing you haven’t seen before and is a tired exercise in entertainment. For its fine cast and good performances, it plays out like a greatest-hits album, making it strictly for people who are fans of the genre or, by a stretch, its fine cast.

Tracee Ellis Ross (Black-ish, Mixed-ish) plays superstar and singing legend Grace Davis, who has hit that sweet spot in her illustrious career where she no longer has to tour. She can now sit back, cash her royalty checks, and accept a cushy Vegas residency gig if she wants. The problem is, she doesn’t know what she wants to do next, and her career ambition is in limbo. Her overworked and underappreciated assistant, Maggie (Dakota Johnson), has aspirations of her own and doesn’t think her boss’s sun is setting yet, despite what Grace’s manager (Ice Cube) has to say about it.

The High Note, for all its tired faults, does work, for the first 90 minutes anyway, as pure escapist entertainment. Johnson has the lead role here, and along with Ross, does a fine job of playing with the themes of power, ambition, and sitting at crossroads in life no matter their varying age differences. Kelvin Harrison Jr has a nice role as Maggie’s love interest, a soulful singer who appreciates the classic singers, including the great Otis Redding. They both have real chemistry, and Harrison continues to put together an eclectic filmography and shows off an impressive set of pipes to boot — confirming life just isn’t fair for the rest of us.

The real star though is Ross, who is very good here. I have no doubt that watching her world-famous mother, Dianna Ross, sing for the masses across the world for decades, paid off handsomely — there wasn’t a second I doubted that Ross could be a world-class aging pop-star. In a weak year for female roles, if released closer to the award season, she may have had a shot at an Oscar nomination for supporting actress. It will most likely be forgotten by the time the award season rolls around, despite the shortage of nominees this year based on the current state of film releases.

The problem is the script has nothing we haven’t watched before or seen play out a hundred times this century in romantic dramas. There is nothing offensive about The High Note — unless you consider its incomprehensible plot twists offensive to one’s own intelligence, and that’s the rub. The film could be considered mild escapism done well, but the attempt at a cheap, let’s connect the dots for the audience, unbelievably needless ending, is so uncontrollably eye-rolling that takes any goodwill the viewer had and throws it out the window.
Still, for fans of the genre and the stars,
The High Note doesn’t embarrass itself and casual fans of the genre or stars will most likely go home happy — just like a fan grabbing ABBA’s greatest hits in the discount bin. For the rest of us, there is no need to pay premium video-on-demand prices for this type of watered-down product. Please wait for an airing of this film on cable.

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M.N. Miller

M.N. Miller has been a film and television writer for Ready Steady Cut since August of 2018 and is patiently waiting for the next Pearl Jam album to come out.