Music and Lyrics

Timed to arrive with Valentine's Day, Warner Bros. is releasing the romantic comedy Music and Lyrics starring Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant -- and critics, by and large, are greeting it with warm kisses. "This movie doesn't pretend to be anything more than a cheerful night out, and on that count it scores: It will set a happy mood for couples and a lot of singles, too," writes Michael Sragow in the Baltimore Sun. That's generally the tenor of most other reviews. For example, A.O. Scott writes in the New York Times that the movie "is the type of modern Hollywood production that aspires to nothing more than the competent dispensing of mild amusement and easy emotion." And Eleanor Ringel Gillespie advises in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Over-thinking Music and Lyrics is a waste of time. It is what it is, and it is that honorably." Grant and Barrymore receive much applause for their performances and virtually all of the reviews remark on how they display an exceptional on-screen chemistry (despite the fact that there's a 15-year age difference between them). "Grant is a superb comic actor when he gets his jiving and shucking under control, as here," writes Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post. Barrymore "is adorable and an equal match for Grant's charm," writes Claudia Puig in USA Today. Carrie Rickey sums up in the Philadelphia Inquirer: "More substantial than a sugary treat, this crunchy rom-com with Hugh Grant as a has-been popster and Drew Barrymore as a never-was poet (they collaborate on a hit song) is simply irresistible." And Roger Moore who gives the film only a so-so review in the Orlando Sentinel, nevertheless remarks, "If you get any pleasure from watching two of the best romantic comedy actors of the past 20 years do their thing and give their all, then this is the date movie for you."

Cute movie, but not much chemistry and the romance is pretty last minute