‘The Greatest Hits’ Review

Stars: Lucy Boynton, Justin H. Min, David Corenswet, Austin Crute, Retta | Written and Directed by Ned Benson

Harriet (Lucy Boynton) is struggling to deal with the loss of her boyfriend Max (David Corenswet), attending grief therapy two years after his passing. She figures out that certain songs will take her back in time, charting music shared in their relationship to revisit specific memories. Trying to remember the song that could unlock saving Max’s life, Harriet gets mixed up with David (Justin H. Min) in the present.

It goes without saying that a good soundtrack makes a movie — though that doesn’t necessarily mean one needs to dazzle in order to make a film worthwhile. However, if you are leading with sound first, it’s an unwritten given that your songs need to be in order and benefit the wider storyline. It might be The Greatest Hits in name, but the Ned Benson flick isn’t the same in nature, erratically pulling a mish-mash of tunes together to create something largely mundane.

On paper, to use a Love Island phrase, The Greatest Hits should knock the rom-com into the modern 2020s. Combining the sci-fi element of time travel with the timeless yearning for a fierce love that once was, the movie’s narrative should easily last the course of its 90-minute runtime. In reality, it’s almost a built-in twist that the gimmick falls flat incredibly quickly, doing little other than to serve a fresh take on a flashback. This isn’t helped by Harriet herself — a woman who is so dependent on her past that she has absolutely no grounding in the present.

Without a shred of personality, there’s only so much that viewers can connect or even care about Harriet’s situation. A great deal is learned about the people around her — how they behave, what makes them tick, and where it all goes horribly wrong — but the woman herself is defined by little other than non-respondent therapy sessions and a pair of headphones. While it makes sense that Harriet isn’t taken with life in the moment thanks to her situation, the wider idea doesn’t do the immediate storyline justice. When Harriet meets David, hope is on the horizon, but plays out somewhat bizarre thanks to Harriet’s stilted interaction with what’s in front of her. It might be an obvious metaphor, but it’s an ill-thought-out one at best.

This isn’t to say that The Greatest Hits is all doom and gloom. The overall premise is undeniably fresh, opening the door for future rom-coms to take messy love in a totally different direction. Performances are satisfyingly solid across the board, with a particularly delightful cameo from Retta, injecting some much-needed heart into the movie’s bearing on how grief plays out in everyday life. The latter is something the film largely tackles successfully too, coddled expertly by the phrase “loss may be forever, but grief is only temporary.”

The Greatest Hits has arguably — and courageously — swung big, but has largely missed its landing. With an indifferent lead and a haphazard approach to its own concept, Benson’s idea lets itself down in execution, although its bare bones still sing with promise.

** 2/5

The Greatest Hits is available to watch on Disney+ in the UK and Hulu in the US, now.