YouTuber, musician, and comedian Rudy Mancuso adds a few more slashes to his CV with Música (now streaming on Prime Video), a breezy, charming coming-of-ager he directed, co-wrote with Dan Lagana, composed the music for, and stars in alongside Camila Mendes (Riverdale), Francesca Reale (Stranger Things), J.B. Smoove, and Maria Mancuso, his real-life mom. “Based on a true story…unfortunately,” goes the disclaimer in Música, in which Mancuso plays a version of himself as a perpetually distracted college student in New Jersey with a flair for music and creativity, a loving but overbearing Brazilian mother, and one romantic relationship faltering while the promise of another hangs on one big prospect: can actually get his shit together? Rudy’s life might be easier if he didn’t see music wherever he looked. Then again, maybe that’s what makes him unique.
The Gist: Haley (Reale) worries that Rudy (Mancuso) is distracted. They’ll be graduating soon, and she wants to move on from the Ironbound, their neighborhood in Newark, get a place in New York City, buy a dog, and begin their life together as she sees it. But while Haley describes her expectations, Rudy transforms the diner where they sit into a choreographed sequence full of rhythmic punch and dynamic movement. He even plucks a few music notes out of the air beside Haley. This is the world he sees and hears, as the real world Rudy lives in either constantly distracts or simply leaves him behind. When Haley dumps him in the diner, Rudy’s left to conduct imaginary conversations with Diego, the star puppet from the shows he performs to no one in the subway.
All Rudy’s mom Maria (Maria Mancuso) wants is to set her son up with a nice Brazilian girl. She even brings home the nieces and cousins of her coworkers at the salon. Rudy bristles at this, but Maria says she has no choice – “you don’t make decisions for yourself.” She’s right, of course; Rudy’s spinning his wheels. He has a mind for music and puppetry, but no follow-through. He receives advice from his friend Anwar (Smoove), who runs a local food truck. But Anwar’s view of the world is full of opposites and double-speak. And Diego has his back, at least in spirit, but also spits some truths. “It’s gonna be OK, bro. Er, probably not…”
When Rudy meets Isabella (Mendes), it’s with a spark of meet-cute energy and the sting of codfish slapping him in the face. The fish market where she works is a favorite for the Brazilian expat community in Newark, and Isabella and Rudy bond further over delicious coxinhas in the nearby park. But Rudy can’t turn off his internal music. When he closes his eyes, the world becomes rhythmic. Basketball players, double-dutch jumpers, birds and traffic and voices – to him, it’s all E-flats, melodies, and scales. And Música, true to its title, frequently represents that with fantastically visual and frequently stomping dance numbers. It’s his life as a song, but Rudy doesn’t know the words to all of the verses. And in his haste to make both Isabella and Haley happy, as well as his mom, Rudy risks being returned to the puppets and loneliness of his one-note life.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? In the Heights presented a slice of neighborhood life, too, a place where people are often found to be breaking out in song or dance or both. And as recent coming-of-age romantic comedies go, Honor Society is a standout, with Angourie Rice and Gaten Matarazzo circling each other amid a few fresh wrinkles in the genre formula.
Performance Worth Watching: Camila Mendes is a nice, grounded presence in Música, playing a version of the wise free spirit whose philosophical nature and inherent belief in people inspires focus in the main character, as well as imparting a few important lessons.
Memorable Dialogue: “Are you aware that you do this thing? Like, you go somewhere?” Not only is Rudy aware of his synesthesia, and how it pulls him into rhythmic daydreams, but it’s so innate to how he sees and hears the world that sometimes he can’t recognize what’s right in front of him.
Sex And Skin: Nothing here.
Our Take: Rudy Mancuso is a pleasant blank at the center of Música, a continually distracted dreamer with a wild head of hair who nevertheless has two principal abilities – he can conduct the diegetic sounds of everyday life, and he attracts women who find his constant scatterbrained state charming. But as a first-time director, Mancuso is more focused. He lets his visual ambition run toward a kind of fluid whimsy, with a simple scene of taking the bus becoming a coordinated dance number full of found percussion. And later, once his frantic attempts to placate Haley while wooing Isabella collapse into a Jack in Three’s Company-like frame, Música elevates a restaurant scene into controlled single-take chaos, with both women demanding answers, his mom appearing at exactly the wrong time, and even a wordless argument with the house piano player that occurs entirely through minor chords and taps on glassware. Rudy the character’s inability to focus means that the storytelling in Música can feel similarly unfocused. But the film’s traditional coming-of-age, rom-com beats are heightened by the actual beats and melodies in the music that constantly flows through it.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Rudy Mancuso marks his solid filmmaking debut with Música, which flows visually and aurally on the strength of its musical soul. Throw in some romantic comedy precociousness, and the whole thing becomes a coming-of-age foot tapper.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.