Music (2021)

Rating – 0/4

*SPOILERS*

Music. Out of tune. Out of sync. A low note. No, I’m not sorry for all those music puns. It is called Music after all, and it helps that it was made by Sia, a musician. Wow, such brilliant effort in the title. I never would’ve guessed the theme. And I’ve never seen anything more offensive, more misguided, and more confusing than this one. And I’m a guy who’s seen bad movies like North and The Last Airbender. 

We’re in for a good one, folks. 

Written, directed, produced, and featuring songs by Sia (vanity, much?) and starring Kate Hudson, Leslie Odom Jr, and Maddie Ziegler, Music is about…Music. No, not singing or instruments, but a girl named Music and her sister, Kazu, or Zu.

After the death of her mother, Zu (Hudson), a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, becomes the legal guardian of her nonverbal autistic sister, Music (Ziegler). And along the way, Zu gets together with a man named Ebo and they learn to care for Music as a family. 

Music. Kazu. Ebo. Surprised his name isn’t “Oboe” to fit the music themes. Christ Sia, we get it! You like music! You’re a musician! Tell us something we don’t know.

And they all live happily ever! The end. Curtain. 

No, seriously. That’s it. The plot is paper thin, the characters are flat, and the main themes are barely touched. It feels lazy, underdeveloped, and incomplete. Several music videos are interspersed throughout the film that represent how Music sees the world that feel more like YouTube ads rather than anything plot-related and there are two subplots regarding Ebo having HIV and a kid in Ebo’s martial arts class who accidentally gets killed by his father. Umm, okay…I have no idea about the last one and neither did Sia apparently. Both of these subplots are quickly forgotten and never mentioned again. 

What great writing…

But, if you’ve seen the movie (my condolences), the trailers, or read the articles, you can probably spot the elephant in the room that I need to address: autistic representation. Oh shit!

As a personal disclaimer, I’m not autistic myself so I am not trying to get offended for the autistic community nor do I speak for them. And they’ve already spoken out against this movie and rightfully so. But I can recognize when a movie is offensive, and Music is so bad and offensive that you almost need the Southern Poverty Law Center to file a lawsuit.

First is the casting of neurotypical actress Maddie Ziegler playing the autistic Music. Her mannerisms and facial expressions are extremely exaggerated and she acts almost as if she was possessed or like an alien that was trying to be human. I’ve met many autistic people and NONE of them act like this. I understand, as the saying goes, “when you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism” but I have no idea what the hell she was doing. Maddie’s performance is stereotypical and acts how people would mock autism. 

Epic fail!

But I don’t blame Maddie for any of this and in fact, I feel bad for her. During filming, she repeatedly expressed reservations and apprehension about playing an autistic character and was worried about offending people. But nope, Sia pressured her into continuing her role. 

And we wonder why so many child stars get fucked up. 

And I’ve been trashing Sia throughout, but that brings me to the second point: her behavior. With people rightfully criticizing Music and its portrayal of autism, Sia immediately began attacking anyone who offered the slightest bit of feedback. 

She belittled the autistic community. 

She called one person a “bad actor.” 

She posted profane rants on Twitter. 

She offered feeble excuses that made no sense on why she cast a non-autistic actress to play Music. 

And her ego ran rampant.

Man, that hole she dug herself into got so big that it might as well have been the Grand Canyon. 

For someone who has a line in one of her songs that says, “I’ve got thick skin and an elastic heart”, I’m calling bullshit! Just read any of her tweets or watch any interview regarding this movie and you’ll see what I mean. If she had thick skin, she’d listen to the complaints and make a sincere effort to change her film, instead of attacking everyone and everything. But alas, she took the low road and is solely responsible for this mess.

This movie reeks of Oscar bait and hits all the boxes. Disabilities? Check. Human struggles? Check. Serious subject matter? Check. And I don’t know why this movie got two Golden Globe nominations. I know award shows are just popularity contests and there’s always plenty of surprises and snubs, but still. Luckily, it didn’t win.

And this was a pure vanity project meant to showcase Sia’s “talent” and show how much she “understands” representation in media. Bullshit! She stated did three years of research on autism and this is what she came up with? Did she really think something offensive and misguided would be worth watching? Did she not expect any criticism or expect to pay for her mistakes?  

This is the price of failure. Learn from it!

This is the price of an overinflated ego. Eat shit!

This is the price of being offensive. Backlash!

Ignoring the glaringly offensive content and Sia’s behavior, it’s not a good movie. It’s pretentious, poorly written and directed, and downright boring. I do believe Sia and the crew went into this with the best intentions to give a voice to a marginalized community, but failed miserably and handled things the wrong way. Critics and the autistic community were rightfully pissed off and were perfectly justified to call out Sia. It was a missed opportunity for representation and in more competent hands, it could’ve been good, but it just hits all the wrong notes.

And Sia, maybe you’re just a bad director!