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For anyone who has even the slightest interest in Hollywood, it is not surprising that Anne Hathaway appeared recently. PopcastThe New York Times critic’s podcast has become the first place to promote music. After all, the actor – whose last appearance in the musical carried him Academy Award – is a major part of one of the most recent high-profile films showing the popularity of pop on the screen. No, it’s not Mother MaryA24 is a new psychodrama in which Hathaway is making headlines as a world-famous diva amidst spiritual and sartorial crises. I think The idea of Youa 2024 visual romance in which 40-year-old divorcee Hathaway hooks up with a young singer who looks suspiciously like Harry Styles.
The Idea of You successfully suggested that Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine) was the breakout star of a 2010s boy band with a fanbase called August Moon. And by “properly distributed”, I mean that the film also mixed a series of One Direction-esque iconography – rock-lite songs, crazy fun and group scenes – in real music videos and satisfyingly banal bops. The place is low; Many movies have made famous artists and/or music from other genres, but very few go beyond pastiche. Being an echo is enough.
I found myself missing the impressive but forgettable releases of August Moon and looking to Mother Mary’s more sophisticated style, which also tries hard to find the magic of pop by mixing the familiar. Diva signatures are on the rise – Mary’s mom walks like Taylor Swift, enjoys Beyoncé’s goddess break and has Ariana Grande’s gorgeous tattoos. She shares with Lady Gaga the royal removal, the style of respect and the patience of women (as well as another history – Lowery seems to have been inspired a little by Gaga in the middle of the age when he met Laurieann Gibson, the director of the producer of her first two albums.) Indeed, this film is very beautiful, somewhere between the pictures and the shows and another favorite movie star, you will see the vision.
I didn’t. This came from Lowery’s writings, which lead more to psychobabble and leading metaphors, but mostly because it seems so unsettled that it’s so hard to fake pop fame on the screen. It’s not for lack of trying, or care. For the most part, Mother Maria’s classics, which are meant to beautify a person whose relationship with fandom serves as a familiar metaphor, were created with great respect for art that is often easily dismissed. On the Popcast, Hathaway waxes poetic about learning pop music as a student, and Mother Mary seems like a genius — she’s trash-talking, sure, but she’s mastered the style, understated grace and winning personality of a pop star. But the result is not, as FKA Branch says in the same interview, “a complete feeling” even an imperfect comparison. This is an exception, and the latest frustrating example of a paradox: the power of pop is everywhere – commanding endless ideas, attention and sales of fans – but nowhere, for sure, in film and TV.
Mother Mary, to be fair, has set herself the difficult task of not only proving to us the reality of this song but also its fictional popularity, something that requires the indefatigable quality of a star – that quicksilver. something what makes a certain actor appear on camera, or how, say, Harry Styles appeared in One Direction – that can’t be made, only trained. The impossibility of reverse alchemy, creating the story of traditional mythology, is the very reason why Amazon is exploding. Daisy Jones & The Sixwhich used more stars to create another Fleetwood Mac, which was a huge hit.
It helps to bank on real things. Although Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born was ultimately about a fading male star, it was Lady Gaga’s transformation, from high camp to an ambitious singer-songwriter, that made Shallow a success. The idea of another Brat Summer, cleverly subverted in Charli xcx’s satirical mockumentary. A minute the film was empty, but the film had its unwavering power to burn. The hope for the authenticity of the real, permanent thing fuels our evergreen fascination with the most successful genre of music, from Michael to Rocketman, Bohemian Rhapsody to Springsteen: Save Me from Nowhere. Lovers or not, the question of whether Austin Butler can evoke the interest of Elvis Presley, or whether Timothée Chalamet can sound like Bob Dylan, is always in the place of the person who was created by the commercial.
A number of recent films have been successful in using pop stardom as the basis of the plot, rather than the title engine. Horror movies A trap and Smile 2which was released in 2024, both arenas at the risk of female stars appearing as the starting point for the conventions of the music genre, built with music videos, Drew Barrymore crossover appearing celeb cameos and original songs suitable for the average singer. The release of more Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) or Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan, daughter of the director M Night) works, because it seems strange to some (for example, the father of Josh Hartnett’s girl / another killer) because it is important for young fans. In both cases, mediocrity and disposability are part of the product. Perhaps the best fantasy musical of recent times is, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, Jocelyn’s (Lily-Rose Depp) World Class Sinner / I’m a Freak, a mid-range musical based on HBO’s cursed series The Idol, it’s the perfect combination of dumb, camp, demonic and deeply emotional. insects.
Each of these charts an inexplicable path through the many mires of popular modernity; fewer have muscles committed to the corner. Alex Russell seems guilty Lurkerwhich was released last year, puts atmospheric, catchy music, with enough video elements, to paint a picture of poison, in which a fanatical fan enters a group of musicians who are too free to trust and envy. But it is Vox LuxBrady Corbet’s 2018 forerunner The Brutalist, which remains the most divisive and compelling film in recent memory for its bleak view of pop music as empty, fame as a Faustian bargain; in it, a school shooting survivor becomes the star played by a sarcastic Natalie Portman, but her music has no depth, or comfort, only violence created by the worms that slowly kill her. It’s a very dark scene – the movie, unsurprisingly, made little money – but it’s ambitious and fearless enough to be unforgettable. (I can’t say the same about the music, which is so low-key, and disrespectful of actual pop, that you don’t take it seriously.)
Vox Lux, at least, showed some confidence that wasn’t found in Mother Mary’s demise. For all its visuals, and Hathaway’s and Michaela Coel’s sincere dedication to the visuals, the film is surprisingly weightless – unmoved from real humiliation of modern celebrities, unscathed from the pressures of obscure, unrecognizable people, unshackled from history. Disinterested, to some extent, in the actual style of popular pop. But to be fair, the vibes are simple; not even all the effort in the world can create pop magic.
