It’s difficult to even pick a starting point on the many misfires that are musician-turned-filmmaker Sia’s misguided directorial debut, “Music.” So much of it is bad and ill-conceived, all of it worth criticizing in various ways. There’s the infantilizing use of an autistic character, who the film portrays as nonverbal but never has the bravery to explicitly identify as autistic, who ends up being the magic push an adult screwup needs to get her life in order. You know, the same narrative device Adam Sandler’s “Big Daddy” used only with more nuance than this? Yes. But while the flaws of “Music” begin with casting neurotypical and able-bodied dance prodigy Maddie Ziegler to play a character with autism spectrum disorder, they extend past her: into the exhaustingly predictable plot, the underdeveloped nature of Kate Hudson’s and Leslie Odom Jr.’s characters, and the thoroughly twee dance sequences. This movie is literally and figuratively saying music can save your life, but the execution is all treacle and dust—overly sweet and utterly empty.
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“Music” has been embroiled in controversy for months now, since Sia argued with fans on Twitter about her casting of Ziegler, which she has described as “nepotism,” and directly insulted others who wondered why she didn’t pursue an autistic actor for the role. And the pushback grew broader after the film’s trailer was re-released: members of the autism spectrum disorder community objected to her description of them as “specially-abled” vs. “disabled” (the latter is preferred by some) and questioned her partnership with the organization Autism Speaks during the production of the film (the group has been criticized for its use of fear tactics for fundraising). Perhaps Sia felt redeemed when the Hollywood Foreign Press Association handed “Music” two Golden Globe nominations last week, for Best Motion Picture—Musical or Comedy and Best Actress—Motion Picture Comedy or Musical for Kate Hudson. But now, people are actually going to see “Music,” and realize that at best, it’s a well-intentioned mess; at worst, it’s the smug self-promotion of an artist who has inserted an album’s worth of music videos into a plot that barely holds itself together. Aside from the obviously problematic elements regarding Ziegler, “Music” is just bizarrely disjointed, with all the nuance of one of those absurd wigs Sia used to wear to camouflage herself from the public eye. Is there one of those we can get to, well, ensconce and hide this entire movie?
Set in a fantasy “Sesame Street” version of New York City, “Music” follows the same-named character, who is a teenage girl on the autism spectrum. Mostly nonverbal, she can issue a few phrases that relate to her daily routine: asking her grandmother to make her eggs for breakfast, announcing that she’s leaving for her walk around the block, and later stating that she’s going to bed for the night. An oversized pair of headphones are on her ears at all times because of her exceptional auditory sensitivity, but—and this is one of the film’s strangest discrepancies—it’s never clear whether she wears them to drown out the world, or whether she’s actually listening to music on them.
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When Music’s grandmother unexpectedly dies, her half-sister Zu, short for Kazu (Hudson), re-enters her life. A drug dealer to the rich who is out on probation and struggling to get sober, Zu is said to be “twice” Music’s age, and they briefly grew up together before Zu’s life turned towards addiction and crime. Mostly interested in whether her grandmother left a will and completely unaware of how to take care of Music, Zu struggles immediately—until kindly neighbor Ebo (Odom) steps in. He knows to restrain Music before or during an episode so she can feel “safe” (note: not a tactic all autism activists agree on) and he has experience in doing so because his younger brother in Ghana was also autistic. (An actual line of dialogue here is, “Special needs are not well-understood in my country; in fact, in my village, it was considered a curse.” Yikes!) He is kind and considerate and all the things Zu is not, and naturally, they fall for each other for inexplicable reasons because the film doesn’t bother explaining it.
What “Music” assumes is that you’ll immediately root for these characters because of the hardships they’ve suffered—Zu and her addictions, Ebo and his romantic heartbreak—rather than making them compelling in their own right. And the fundamental issue is that for all of Hudson’s wan charm and Odom’s expressive physicality during the musical sequences, “Music” wants us to care about these characters because they care about Music, who is positioned as a lesser-than. Isn’t Ebo great because he’s kind to her? Isn’t Zu great because she learns to love her half-sister? Caring for a child as a means of self-betterment is a well-trod cinematic trope at this point, but all “Music” does is skip, hop, and jump on the same old thing.
Admittedly, the song “1+1” is a bop. But the two halves of this movie—the Zu getting her life together stuff, and the brightly rendered musical stuff—just don’t gel. Sia zooms us every few minutes into Music’s mind, in which some of the real-world effects of the autistic teen are still there: her unsynchronized blinking, her wide smile, her finger stims. But in this interior reality, Music is also a phenomenal dancer, twirling, kicking, and gesturing with zeal and freedom. She gestures at her own mouth, as if she’s yelling or singing; other children and background dancers appear; Sia herself makes a cameo. Music imagines herself wearing elaborate outfits instead of the stained, all-white sweatsuit she wears in real life; she pictures herself in a tunnel of cotton candy, or dancing with a human-sized dog, etc.
There are singing and dancing and it’s all strikingly colored and well-choreographed, but Sia can’t decide here is whether these interludes are strictly glimpses into Music’s mind, or a shared interior world between her and the other characters, or strictly fantastical imaginings. For the most part, they seem to be the former, and the film undermines its own rendering of Music’s interior life by also including Zu and Ebo’s standalone songs within that space. Ebo wears an oversized pair of suspenders and runs in place, signifying how trapped he feels; Zu, in a gigantic heart-shaped ruffle costume, interrupts someone else’s wedding to declare her own love; and Music ends up lost in the shuffle.
On the one hand, moving “Music” away from its titular character takes the focus off Ziegler. On the other hand, if Sia wanted to make a movie about the healing power of music, and if she wanted to jam it full of her own songs, and if she wanted to create a vivid fantastical world in which all these characters express themselves through song and dance … why not just do that? Why incorporate and then exploit the autistic angle at all? Why bother writing songs that flirt with offensiveness, with lyrics like “Reality is too much for me?” Why think that applying a whimsical glaze to all this was the way to go? “She sees the world in a completely different way from us,” Ebo tells Zu, but it’s arguable whether anyone needs to see “Music” at all. [D]
“Music” will arrive in select theaters on February 12.