Singer’s personal assistant’s dream to be a producer
The newest movie to be released with the opening of theatre, ‘The High Note’, a story about a superstar singer and her overworked personal assistant will be shown from January 22 onward.
Scheduled to be screened at the Scope, Liberty and PVR cinemas in Colombo, the film stars Dakota Johnson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Zoë Chao, Bill Pullman, Eddie Izzard, and Ice Cube in stellar cast.
The comedy drama directed by Nisha Ganatra and written by Flora Greeson, follows a famous singer’s personal assistant who wants to become a music producer.
Maggie Sherwoode is the longtime personal assistant to legendary R&B singer Grace Davis who still has a successful touring career despite not releasing new material for a decade. Maggie is also an aspiring music producer, remixing Grace’s songs in her free time. Grace’s manager, Jack Robertson, believes that her time has passed and she should accept a Las Vegas residency and continue releasing live albums rather than record new material.
At a grocery store, Maggie meets aspiring musician David Cliff and watches him perform outdoors. He invites her to a party at his house, where to her surprise she learns that despite slumming it as a musician he is quite wealthy. Impressed by his voice, she lies about being a professional producer and offers to work with him on an album. He accepts and the two begin work together with Maggie coaching him through his nerves.
Grace is displeased when a famous music producer remixes one of her songs to modernize it with excessive synths and pop elements. Appalled, Maggie shows Grace her own version of the song, and Grace decides to release Maggie’s version, without payment or credit. While Maggie is pleased to be producing for Grace, Jack pulls her aside to reveal how her tactlessness ruined potential future deals. Grace later expresses her interest in recording a new album to her record label. They discourage the idea and push her towards the Vegas residency to Grace’s embarrassment. Maggie encourages Grace to disregard the label and create new material but Grace lectures her on how women of her age and race rarely succeed in music.