Charming performances by Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas anchor an offbeat and heartwarming musical revenge story
In Power Ballad, washed-up rocker Rick Power (Paul Rudd) gets an unlikely second act when an all-night jam session at an Irish wedding with global boy band sensation Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas) produces some genuinely great songs—and the beginnings of a beautiful friendship. But when Danny rockets to the top of the worldwide charts after claiming one of Rick’s songs as his own, Rick must decide whether to let it go or risk everything—his reputation, his career, his family—to claim the credit he deserves and the fame that’s eluded him his entire life.
After two decades of memorable modern musicals including the coming-of-age banger Sing Street to the Oscar-winning Once, it’s surprising to find writer-director John Carney in a cynical mood. Power Ballad carries the earnest charm of the Irish balladeer’s best work, but it’s riddled with a weariness toward the music industry’s increasingly cut-throat reality. Where Glen Hansard and Ferdia Walsh-Peelo won our hearts by relentlessly chasing life and love, Rudd’s Rick Power exists in a quieter resignation: his steady if schmaltzy gig and a loving family that pokes fun at his aging ambitions are both gentle reminders that, for most of us, this is probably as good as it gets. The shrugged-off robbery of a beleaguered busker later in the film isn’t just a fantastic callback to Once’s opening, but a distillation of the film’s exhausted spirit–earnestly asking how to go on, alongside Rick, in the cynical, monolithic face of modern pop-dom.
Carney, as ever, finds his answer in those fleeting moments of connection between creatives—even when divided by generations and continents. Rick and Danny’s single night together is the kind of session destined to be mythologized in liner notes and press junkets. Where the best of Rick’s life feels behind him, Jonas’ Danny senses that same existential cliff fast approaching. Their shared drive—not just to make their mark, but to do it through the actual work of creating something real—bonds us to these musicians as surely as it bonds them to each other. That it’s ultimately undone by the collision of good intentions and desperate egos only makes it more memorable, and gives effective dramatic and comedic fuel to Rick’s madcap quest to reclaim his piece of the myth.
Carney draws the best from his leads as their parallel fights for relevance begin to mirror each other—particularly when comedy vet Rudd and continued heartthrob Jonas get the chance to flex their dueling comedic and dramatic chops in tandem. Sure, Carney’s familiar silliness and sentimentality is prominently featured like well-worn yet winning dad jokes–top of which is Rudd’s wedding band, The Bride and Groove. But neither director nor actor ever loses their grip on the selfish tension simmering between the two men. Carney’s humanist streak prizes the good in both—but doesn’t shy away from those pivotal moments when Rick and Danny choose not to do the right thing, often making everything worse despite their best intentions. As much as both would deny it, Rick and Danny each act as though their shot at the spotlight might have to come at someone else’s expense—a poisonous ethos gleefully stoked by Jack Reynor in a smarmy turn as Danny’s professional asshole of a record label manager. It’s frequently engaging to see performers like Rudd and Jonas willing to tarnish their everyman charm through moments of self-centered obsession or regret, moments Carney plays for laughs as much as lump-in-your-throat drama.
It’s certainly Carney’s most aggressive outing as a writer, working alongside co-writer/co-star/chaos magnet Peter McDonald to craft a musical revenge story that’s light on its feet but never shy about sending things crashing back to earth. From party crashes to car crashes, Rick’s manic journey feels increasingly like tilting at windmills, rich with a palpable self-doubt new to Carney’s work. But it’s precisely those moments of despair and diminishing self-worth, of truths Rick knows in his bones that no one else can reasonably believe, that make his scrappy, big-hearted pursuit for recognition so endearing and alive.
Just as energetic is the film’s score, blending anthemic rock, wedding staples, and the piano and acoustic guitar melodies central to every Carney earworm. The central song—as Carney noted in the SXSW Q&A—is the perfect vehicle for the film: hooky to the point of cloying annoyance after endless radio repeats, yet somehow reborn when placed in the right hands. It gives Carney room to both champion and ridicule the current state of pop, capturing how the same song can look utterly ridiculous in a big-budget, green-screen music video one day and feel like absolute truth when a father plucks it softly for his wide-eyed daughter the next. These melodies are about time, place, intention, and connection—and nobody knows the rhythm of our heartstrings quite like John Carney.
Power Ballad had its US Premiere at SXSW 2026, and hits theaters June 5, 2026 courtesy of Lionsgate.
