5 Years Ago, This Charming Dakota Johnson Romantic Musical Dramedy Flew Under the Radar — but It Deserves a Second Chance

Filmmaker Nisha Ganatra has come a long way from directing episodes for cutting-edge television shows such as Girls and Transparent. She recently found box office success with Disney’s Freakier Friday, where she managed to recapture the magic chemistry between Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis. But five years before Freakier Friday, Ganatra made a charming dramedy film that went against the standard tropes of music industry tales called The High Note.

Lost in the wave of 2020 releases that were dropped on streamers due to the COVID-19 pandemic,The High Note managed to be one of the most rented films of the period, as it ranked third on the iTunes store. A significant part of its limited success in that regard is that the film offered a much-needed escape for audiences during a dark time in history. A unique mix of comedy, romance, and a dynamic spin on family bonding, The High Note speaks to the power of artistry in music and the struggle to maintain integrity in a fickle industry.

What Is ‘The High Note’ About?

The High Note intertwines two narratives from the perspective of aspiring music producer Maggie Sherwoode (Dakota Johnson). A big part of Maggie’s life revolves around working as a personal assistant to iconic R&B diva Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross), following her on tour and remixing the singer’s hit songs at home. An opportunity opens for Maggie when she has a chance encounter with an unsung singing talent named David Cliff (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) and offers her producing services while hiding her day job as Grace’s assistant.

Juggling an established star and an undiscovered talent soon proves increasingly complicated for Maggie. She struggles to convince Grace to record a new album while the legendary singer is at professional odds with her self-centered manager, Jack (Ice Cube), who wants her to accept a lucrative residency gig in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, Maggie wrestles with growing romantic feelings for David as they work together recording his demo. When the two lives of the assistant/producer collide at an industry party for Grace, a shocking revelation about the talented musicians completely shifts Maggie’s goals from career-oriented to something deeply personal.

Upon release, The High Note earned a mixed reception from critics, scoring a 71% fresh score from Rotten Tomatoes. Part of the criticism has to do with story traits that resemble Working Girl, the biggest hit for the career of Johnson’s real-life mother, Melanie Griffith. There’s the mentor/apprentice dynamic between Maggie and Grace that plays out nearly identically to Griffith’s New York secretary and Sigourney Weaver’s powerful boss. Then there’s Maggie risking her assistant job for her producer dreams with David, resembling the subplot of Griffith pretending to be an aspiring executive in her relationship with Harrison Ford. Griffith’s goals for making it in the corporate world are clear based on Weaver’s mistreatment of their employer/employee relationship, whereas Maggie appears to desire appeasing Grace and David simultaneously. Though Working Girl was sharper in tone and timely for the ‘80s in depicting working-class women as underdogs, The High Note struggles with its stakes because it cannot decide if it’s a movie about earning success or reviving a fading star’s career.

‘The High Note’ Breaks Past the Music Industry Stereotypes

Despite the convoluted split narrative, the characters in The High Note are refreshingly not depicted as music industry stereotypes. The standout performer of the film is Ross, embodying the spirit of her iconic mother, Diana Ross. The outstanding quality in her singing voice is truly authentic enough for audiences to leave the movie and seek out the soundtrack right away. Additionally, Ross’s role represents the hard reality legends face when they are past their prime. For all the high production of her live shows and lavish L.A. lifestyle scenes where Ross leans on her natural comedic timing seen on her hit show Girlfriends, she also grounds Grace in dramatic moments where she’s fully aware that being black and past 40 is a dead end in the music business.

In addition to Ross, Johnson helps to elevate The High Note with her pure portrayal of Maggie. Though caught between her commitments to Grace and David, the goal of pushing the artists past their limits remains the same. Johnson brings a sense of sincerity in taking orders from Ross’s diva while encouraging her to be relevant. Similarly, Johnson’s complicated relationship with Harrison, Jr. never feels shoehorned into the story but instead has their dynamic feel like a natural progression for Maggie’s arc. Between the two stories presented in The High Note, Johnson manages to anchor them together without overplaying the material into melodrama territory.

The High Note is far from a paint-by-numbers romantic comedy. It features true-to-life commentary about the music business’s treacherous treatment of aspiring and established talents, compromising dreams for commerce, and a great soundtrack to push the story forward.

The High Note is streaming on Peacock in the U.S.