REVIEW: ‘Música’ Flips Rom-Com Expectations

Trues stories aren’t new to the SXSW Film and TV Festival—Loosley is based on writer, director, and star Rudy Mancuso. Música is a coming-of-age movie with a love story all in one. It follows an aspiring creator with synesthesia who must come to terms with an uncertain future while navigating the pressures of love, family, and his Brazilian culture.  A little bit of a rom-com and a whole lot of drama, Música is a movie that pushes you where it needs to and holds your hand when the time comes. It also proves that coming of age isn’t just for young adult stories.

From a narrative perspective, Música feels simple. Música sticks to the rom-com script up until its third act. Rudy is torn between the woman he knows and the woman who makes him feel alive. One gringa and one Brazialian-American, Rudy has to choose a path in life after a break-up and a meet-cute in a fish market. The only problem is that Rudy isn’t too sure what he wants in life.

Trapped between the life he thought he wanted, which was far away from Newark and one that is centered in his Brazilian community. Mancuso captures the difficulty of balancing reaching out beyond one’s community and still embracing it. While most stories about immigrant children looking for a future outside of their home show success when they leave, Música has Isabella.

She’s happy handling fish and doesn’t want to leave the sounds, food, and people in her Brazilian community. For her, dangerous streets aren’t something to worry about, and she has confidence in spades. While Rudy is in college, Isabella is working. She knows the world and how difficult it is. That’s key to Isabella’s character. She is her own person, and while she is deeply empathetic to how Rudy views the world, especially when his synesthesia causes chaos, she isn’t going to put him first—at least while he doesn’t even think about her feelings.

As a protagonist, Rudy is charismatic and endearing. By the film’s halfway point, he’s unlikable by design. Yet, that works. The messiness in Rudy’s life and the vulnerable way he tackles it feels human and relatable. Even if you want to pull Rudy to the side and shake him, you still want him. As an actor, director, and writer, Rudy Mancuso has put his heart on the screen, with all of its flaws and his strengths.

This is captured by his relationship with his mother, Maria Mancuso, who is played by Rudy’s real-life mother. A debut role for her as much as her son, mama Mancuso is hilarious and thoughtful. She reminds me of my mother. Maria loves her son deeply, but she isn’t afraid to reprimand him. Sometimes overbearing but always filled with humor, Maria is the perfect character to pull you through the story. She is the only one capable of talking sense into Rudy, but also the only person who can comfort him completely.

Sure, the narrative is as standard as they come, but Mancuso’s directorial eye always keeps the simple interesting. The film is filled with beautifully edited transitions. It also features stunning uses of perspective and animation. Mancuso breaks the fourth wall by moving between sets to transition through sequences and embraces small moments of musical inspiration, singing in the subway with Andy Muschetti. A musical without being a pure musical with grand vocal numbers, Música uses the world’s sounds to score the largest and smallest moments of the movie.

At times, Música can be a disorienting movie experience. Mancuso visualizes the cacophony of sound that pulls his attention from even the most emotional conversations. He swings the camera quickly from a basketball bouncing to a jump rope hitting the pavement and then across the green with utensils hitting plates. Individually, the camera’s speed moving between the stark noises of Rudy’s life can disorient, but Mancuso adds layers. One sound is added to another and morphs into a melody, growing as it all comes together. The way that noise turns to music is not only emotional, but it’s beautiful, too.

Rudy Mancuso is a phenomenal talent. In Música, his ability to create art from noise is unparalleled. He isn’t afraid of wearing his heart on his sleeve and inviting you into his home, his culture, and his insecurities. Rudy Mancuso has a bright future ahead of him.

Música screened as a part of the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival and is available now on Prime Video.