The High Note Parent Guide

Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross) is a music icon. With 11 Grammy Awards behind her, she’s at a crossroads: listen to her manager and play it safe with a long term contract in Las Vegas or follow her gut and release a new album with the risk that it will flop.

Maggie Sherwoode (Dakota Johnson) has been a fan of Grace’s music as long as she can remember. For the past three years, she’s been Grace’s personal assistant, running her errands by day and editing her hits with a cleaner, more contemporary sound by night.

David Cliff (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) is an aspiring singer/songwriter, playing grocery stores, bar mitzvahs, and community centers in search of his big break. When he and Maggie meet, she is impressed by his talent and convinces him that she’s a producer who can launch his recording career.

Viewers aren’t going to be surprised with how this plot unfolds. Maggie follows the familiar storyline marked out by Aladdin - pretending to be someone you’re not to get what you want. This plot, although unoriginal, delivers a family-friendly message about honesty and integrity. It also provides positive inter-racial relationships with a white character interacting respectfully with a mixed-race cast. It is possible that some viewers will object to Maggie’s character, seeing her as an example of the white savior trope, coming to the rescue of non-white characters. Others might argue that Maggie needs the African American characters who make her success possible. Whatever you think, this is an area that can fuel a thoughtful debate.

Other moviegoers will complain about the film’s negative convent, principally the 50-plus profanities, frequent alcohol consumption, and implied sexual relationship between an unmarried couple. Unfortunately, The High Note, comes with a bigger disappointment than the cussing and boozing. For most of the movie’s runtime I was favorably impressed that the film was passing the Bechdel Test with flying colors. In other words, it features two female characters who have conversations about something other than a man. Even more rarely, it focuses on a middle-aged woman of color with a history of achievement and growth-oriented future plans. Its other main character is a woman who wants to succeed in a male-dominated area and who takes risks to do so. Sadly, the last fifteen minutes of the movie veer away from a girl power trajectory and into a mawkishly sentimental plot twist that turns a decent drama into an annoying, over-sugared piece of emotional manipulation. Let me be clear here – I don’t object to happy endings (in fact, I prefer them) but this film could still achieve a rosy conclusion without the cloying plot contrivance at the end. It’s frustrating that this musical film suddenly goes tone deaf and strikes the wrong note just when it matters most.