Hulu’s first authentic movie of 2021 goals at altering your perspective on life and what’s stunning in it. The Ultimate Playlist of Noise is a drama with some romantic comedy elements sprinkled in that has themes just like A Stroll to Bear in mind and Clouds, however with totally different losses at stake. It’s nonetheless unhappy and it’ll nonetheless make you cry, so viewer beware if that’s not what you want proper now.
Marcus (Keean Johnson, Alita: Battle Angel) lives life with two units of headphones on, one with ambient sounds and the opposite with music. When he finds out that he has a mind tumor and the surgical procedure will take away his listening to, he units out on a solo quest to cram “A life’s price of listening to into one month,” however finally ends up with an unintentional companion in Wendy (Madeline Brewer, The Handmaid’s Tale), an aspiring musician making an attempt to get to New York Metropolis. Collectively, they journey round recording sounds and find yourself discovering inspiration inside one another.
Directed by Bennett Lasseter, son of Toy Story director John Lasseter, The Final Playlist of Noise makes use of sound design in a extremely attention-grabbing approach. What the movie achieves with sound is sort of akin to the visible dichotomy of Dorothy Gale stepping from Kansas into Munchkinland for the primary time, switching from sepia tone to Technicolor. It’s some of the good elements of the movie and one I encourage viewers to concentrate to.
Keean Johnson provides a robust and plausible efficiency as Marcus and whereas the plot often slows to a snail’s tempo, his curiosity in experiencing the sounds of the world throughout his “Going away occasion” for his ears retains issues recent. His mom, performed by Rya Kihlstedt (A Teacher), additionally provides an unimaginable efficiency and delivers an actual tearjerker second.
Confronted with shedding his listening to, the sense most essential to him, Marcus makes use of his remaining month together with his auditory processing talents to benefit from it. The Disney+ authentic movie Clouds, primarily based on a real story, has the same plot with Zach utilizing his final days earlier than he loses his battle to most cancers to make music together with his greatest good friend. And from my teenage years, the Nicholas Sparks novel and Mandy Moore movie A Stroll to Bear in mind was one other bucket list-style movie. Whereas the plot of The Final Playlist of Noise could be very a lot a retread, the execution is slightly totally different and with the lead character dealing with listening to loss as an alternative of demise, it units itself aside by additionally being a coming of age story.
With wonderful performances from all actors and a few stunning cinematography and sound mixing, The Final Playlist of Noise has a whole lot of good causes to observe it and a comforting total message. However with a plot that pulls prompt comparisons to comparable tales which are extra memorable, it’s destined to be rapidly forgotten.
I give The Final Playlist of Noise 3 out of 5 Unicorn Headphones.
The Ultimate Playlist of Noise premieres Friday, January fifteenth on Hulu.
Alex has been running a blog about Disney movies since 2009 after a lifetime of fandom. He joined the Laughing Place workforce in 2014 and covers movies throughout all of Disney’s manufacturers, together with Star Wars, Marvel, and Fox, along with books, music, toys, shopper merchandise, and meals. You possibly can hear his voice as a member of the Laughing Place Podcast and his face will be seen on Laughing Place’s YouTube channel the place he unboxes stuff.
