Through Sing Street, Fame, and multiple versions of A Star is Born, the dreams of aspiring vocalists/musicians have come to thrilling life on the big screen.  Each hoped their melodies would bloom into something extraordinary, providing haunting strains and glitzy melodrama to hook audiences into repeat viewings.  The six-string serenades in Once captivated audiences in 2007, finding lightening in a bottle with the soaring vocals of its dynamic leads striving for stardom.  Nicole Riegel’s Dandelion sprouts in that familiar fertile field, a movie with music acting as a showcase for emerging talent.  However, while it aims to strike its own chord, it struggles to find a unique voice, though the premise holds promise.

Set against the backdrop of Cincinnati, Dandelion follows its namesake protagonist, (KiKi Layne, Coming 2 America), a singer-songwriter living at home  nursing a career dying on the vine before it ever had the chance to blossom.  Desperate for a breakthrough, she’s grown tired of living at home with her ill mother (Melanie Nicholls-King) and playing gigs to an uninterested lounge crowd.  Suprising even herself, she ventures to a South Dakota motorcycle rally (Sturgis but for some reason not “Sturgis”), where meet cute fate introduces her to Casey (Thomas Doherty), a Scottish guitarist who’s abandoned his musical aspirations. 

Harmonizing with Casey both onstage and off, Dandelion begins to uncover her authentic sound through her time with her troubedor Scotsman and his nomadic band of struggling artists.  Her ambition also stokes the fire in disillusioned Casey, leading a talent lost at sea back to port.  Their whirlwind romance gives Dandelion a greater appreciation for artistic creativity, changing her narrow version of success (early on, she doom scrolls through Instagram wishing she had more followers) to a more pronounced acceptance of her chosen path.  Through collaboration, Dandelion and Casey learn that songs fueled by emotion can often be beautiful but are frequently painful to create.

Riegel’s film is planted firmly in indie territory, boasting a raw and unpolished aesthetic that becomes its charm and Achilles’ heel.  Its intimacy allows for moments of genuine connection between the leads (Layne and Doherty share a warm chemistry), but that same modest scale stymies Dandelion from reaching a higher potential.  Further, the authenticity that can make or break these bootstrap productions feels manufactured, mainly due to an unusually weak supporting cast that detracts from the story’s tender genuineness.  I get the feeling that many minor roles were filled by non-actors or first-timers, adding to the inconsistency onscreen.

Hampering the film further is a tone problem that never works itself out.  Dandelion is hired to perform as a singer in what looks like a sparse hotel bar and breaks down because no one is listening to her original songs.  When did you last pay attention to the singer in your hotel bar?  Or had a singer in your hotel bar?   The emotional transitions can also be jarring; one moment, Dandelion is a tender romance; the next, it’s an explicit portrayal of passion that ears its R rating.  Everything is there to work in unison, but it feels discordant instead.  Even when the film builds to a crescendo of joy in its final act as it finds a fleeting moment of artistic triumph, it quickly loses momentum.

Where Riegel finds penetrating roots are when she and cinematographer Lauren Guiteras explore the creative process within the music.  Capturing the birth of a song as the melodies and lyrics gently emerge, note by note, word by word, these are the scenes that count and stay in your memory.  Featuring original compositions by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner (who also contributed songs to 2021’s Cyrano), the songs provide the film’s most enchanting moments by far.  However, when they are used as attempts to elevate the narrative, they fall short of the lofty goals they are tasked with.

First wowing audiences with her stunning performance in 2018’s If Beale Street Could Talk, Layne brings a sweet and soulful voice to Dandelion the character and the film.  Her hesitant demeanor paints a convincing portrait of an artist on the precipice of going the distance or wilting away, but it’s rarely a role you can fully root for.  That’s because the character is trapped by the confines of a formulaic script (lifeless job, few friends, judgmental parent she must care for) and is given uniformly unsatisfying resolutions to correct course.  Like its titular flower, Layne shows flashes of beauty (her final song has some truly terrific moments) but cannot maintain her desired delicacy against the screenplay’s cold rush of wind.

Dandelion had all the ingredients to be a stirring ballad to artistic perseverance and the transformative power of music’s creative process.  Despite its best efforts, it never finds its perfect pitch.  I could see it frequently teetering on the edge of something special, though, and that rousing ending hinted at the unbridled energy the rest of the film lacked.  While Layne is absolutely the reason to get to a theater and see the movie if you are at all interested in keeping tabs on the next wave of talent, and the musical interludes provide brief breaks of big-screen enchantment, sadly, Riegel’s overall composition falls short of having much replay value.