As someone who might not be particularly musical herself, music has always held a special place in my heart. When I saw that The Greatest Hits was a film about literally time travelling through music, I needed to know how they brought sci-fi and popular music together—well, sometimes popular. Luckily, they did it well, and though The Greatest Hits doesn’t follow all of the great time-travelling rules out there, it was a surprisingly endearing film with a lot of moments that felt genuine and relatable.
The premise behind The Greatest Hits is a tragic one. The story follows Harriet (Lucy Boynton) after the death of her partner, Max (David Corenswet). Since his death, whenever she hears a song that reminds her of a moment with him, she is literally pulled back in time, into her body during that moment, to see her beloved one more time. It seems like a sweet thought, having lost loved ones myself, but we go on to learn that this is basically torture.
Harriet has been stuck in this cycle for two years, with no control over when she goes back in time, aside from choosing to listen to a song. She wears noise-cancelling headphones everywhere she goes to avoid having an “episode” in public, which consists of her passing out on the spot, only able to return when she stops the music in the past.
She spends every day searching for the right song to let her go back to the day Max died and stop him from getting in the car. In a support group, she meets a sweet man named David (Justin H. Min) and starts to fall for him, sadly realizing the life that she has built isn’t made for two.
“The Greatest Hits really tugs at the heartstrings, especially if you’ve experienced great loss.”
The Greatest Hits really tugs at the heartstrings, especially if you’ve experienced great loss. The need to change the past or to constantly wish you could go back in time to see their face or hear their voice just one more time is something that almost anyone has felt at some point. Adding music to the mix is a really powerful draw. I can’t say I haven’t heard a song that has pulled me back in time to when my father was still alive. Music was vital in our lives, and it often makes me think of him.
“It’s just so easy to be pulled back into the past.” We hear Harriet say this early on, but I think it is a phrase everyone can understand. Whether it’s death, a breakup, or even a bad habit, falling back into the past is something we are all guilty of, and The Greatest Hits explores this on a multitude of levels. The phrase “haunted by music” also comes up, but this is all in an attempt to help Harriet heal from the loss of the “love of her life.”
It is an interesting concept, too, because the couple was so young. The Greatest Hits explores a loss like that in their twenties (I’m estimating here). Harriet’s best friend Morris (Austin Crute, Atlanta) plays the role of best friend—the only friend that has stuck around after the last two years and one that knows her time-travelling secret. He forces her to look at the situation after getting fed up, asking if she really thinks they’d still be together or if they really were “true loves.”
What if, right? Loss takes away answers. It leaves the grieving constantly wondering what if. Would they still be together? Would she still be making music? What if they’d never met, then would she ever meet David? After two years of scrambling to save Max’s life, that small ounce of doubt and those butterflies she feels after a short period with David leaves her questioning everything. The Greatest Hits manages to bring so many stages of grief to the screen, some that many people don’t even know exist. How do you move on when everyone else already has?
I’ll be honest: a time-travelling, grieving girlfriend in her mid to late twenties could have been an extremely cheesy experience, but The Greatest Hits managed to keep this out-there story down to earth, charming and incredibly heartwarming. I think a great part of that is, first, due to avoiding any unnecessary theatrics when dealing with actual time-travelling, but second, the people cast in each role.
“The Greatest Hits puts a bit of a sci-fi spin your mother would approve of on the themes of grief, loss, and love, but it does so tastefully, never to take away from the characters and story.”
Heading into The Greatest Hits, the cast felt familiar, but I couldn’t quite place anyone. Looking further, Lucy Boynton was right at home as Harriet, as her background includes Bohemian Rhapsody and Sing Street, though only some bad karaoke was involved here. David Corenswet, who is meant to be our dreamy dead boyfriend, is on the road to play Clark Kent himself in Superman: Legacy and was in House of Cards.
Perhaps the most endearing role in The Greatest Hits goes to Justin H. Min’s David. Min was previously in Beef on Netflix and freaking BEN in The Umbrella Academy! I had no idea! Watching Min play a character that is dealing with loss in his own way while navigating someone else’s grief while taking care of his sister, AND falling in love was a journey I would be happy to go on again and again. I fell in love with David, and now I’m hunting down Shortcomings so I can see more of Min’s work.
The Greatest Hits puts a bit of a sci-fi spin your mother would approve of on the themes of grief, loss, and love, but it does so tastefully, never to take away from the characters and story. Written and directed by Ned Benson (Black Widow), I would be shocked if he hadn’t experienced a great loss himself, with how beautifully and carefully these subjects were tackled. The Greatest Hits is a love letter to music, past loves, and future loves, and I highly recommend it.
