‘Música’ Review: Rudy Mancuso and Camila Mendes in Stylish Coming-of-Age Debut

Before Rudy Mancuso wrote, directed, starred in and composed the music for his stylish debut feature, Música, he made exuberant short-form videos for Vine (R.I.P). In those six-second clips, many of which are compiled on YouTube, the artist experiments with slapstick comedy, an energetic editing style and bouncy compositions that channel how he sees the world. Mancuso has synesthesia, a perceptual condition in which any one kind of sensory stimulation can spark spontaneous reactions in another. Where others see a square, Mancuso might also hear a B note; the letter A will always be terracotta to him, and so on.

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In Música, the artist mines his personal life and singular experience of the world to craft a charming coming-of-age story. The film, which premiered at SXSW and is streaming on Prime Video, follows Rudy (Mancuso) six weeks before his college graduation, when the young Newark native must confront the scary abyss of an unwritten future. This is, in many ways, a classic bildungsroman swathed in an even more conventional romantic comedy. But even when its narrative tips into clichéd territory, Música’s aesthetic remains loose and kinetic — an exciting reflection of its creator’s spirit.

We meet Rudy at a New Jersey diner, where he tunes in and out of a conversation with his girlfriend Haley (Do Revenge’s Francesca Reale). As she admonishes Rudy for his passivity toward their planned future, the musician orders the sounds of his environment like a conductor does an orchestra. Spoons clanking on emptied plates, a broom bristling against linoleum tiles and the bells dinging to alert the servers become a kitchen-sink symphony. It is also a distraction for our anxious hero. He struggles to tap into Haley’s monologue of concerns. Before he knows it, their relationship is over and she’s walking away.

The breakup sends the synesthetic Brazilian artist into a temporary spiral. With graduation fast approaching, Rudy hasn’t started his marketing thesis or begun considering career options. He loves making music and puppetry, which he performs in subway stations for disinterested commuters, but he’s also attracted to the stability of an advertising job in New York. The Ironbound, his Newark neighborhood, can feel too small for his dreams.

Mancuso renders his character’s existential crisis with sprightly scenes inspired by the director’s early Vines and YouTube show, Awkward Puppets. Using his protagonists’ condition as a springboard for aesthetic experimentation, he choreographs inspired moments that keep the mood spontaneous. In one particularly frenetic sequence, a moment of reckoning for Rudy, Mancuso and DP Shane Hurlbut stage a stunning single take, full of costume and set changes that bring to life our protagonist’s’ attempt to have it all. Melissa Kent’s editing animates transitions in Rudy’s daily life, from the monotony of the classroom to the curt humor of his subterranean shows.

Música’s aesthetic flourishes are thrilling (both for the Vine nostalgic and the Mancuso uninitiated), but they can sometimes feel like pageantry to mask an often too thin narrative. The screenplay, co-written by the director and Dan Lagana, struggles to maintain the same charm as the visuals.

After breaking up with Haley, Rudy’s mother (played by Mancuso’s real-life mom Maria Mancuso) tries to introduce him to Brazilian girls from the neighborhood. Like most immigrant mothers anxious to keep their cultural roots alive, she wants her son to marry within the community.

Rudy rejects his mother’s involvement but does end up meeting his own Brazilian bachelorette. Isabella (Riverdale regular Camila Mendes) is a no-nonsense fishmonger whose appreciation for Ironbound expands Rudy’s enthusiasm for staying in the neighborhood after graduation. Their humorous meeting evolves into an electric connection.

The young lovers spend mornings in the park, where Rudy explains his condition to Isabella, and evenings conspiring in dimly lit restaurants. Their romance encounters a roadblock when Haley asks Rudy for another chance. Unable to say no, Rudy accepts and starts a painfully awkward love triangle.

That our charming protagonist makes cowardly choices is a boon to Música. It gives the romantic comedy a complicated edge, like the second season of Love Life. But without compelling character development of either Haley or Isabella, the narrative mostly putters along on predictable routes. There are different scenarios, like conversations between Rudy and his food-truck-owning friend Anwar (J.B. Smoove) or his puppet shows, which add welcome humor. But they too can come off feeling like filler when not supported by the kinds of scenes that enliven the love triangle.

When Isabella, a character whose complexity the film teases but doesn’t always commit to, offers more of herself, it elevates her connection with Rudy and takes Música beyond the clichéd boy-meets-girl story. Their conversations shape our understanding of both characters’ respective personalties, how they are shaped by Brazil and fortified by The Ironbound. They also reflect a shared mission of appreciating heritage without abandoning a chance to form new traditions.