Joanne was part of a very successful 90s rock band and had been living off that for many years, when on a tour in the UK the rest of the band tell her it is over. She then drunkenly enrols at a University in an attempt to validate her life.
* Alright Now - Alternate title*
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Reading the synopsis and the fact that Cobie Smulders is in the leading role I really thought this had the potential to be decent. I could not be more wrong about a film, everything about this is truly terrible. The only IMDb trivia states that it was filmed in five days and that is something you can certainly tell!
Joanne is a horrible dick of person, I have to be blunt about that. Nothing about her is nice at all, she thinks the world owes her everything and that people should instantly recognise her from her past fame. Nothing that would follow would do anything to change my mind and I have no idea how or why Pete was interested in her. Attempting to start a 4-some was a very low point and he did not feel comfortable at all, if that was the other way round everything would be kicking off around it.
Considering the University sign up was supposed to be an attempt to change her life all she wanted to do was drink. Her friend Sara was even attending her classes, another moment that would make you dislike her even more! The run time of the film is only 95 minutes and it certainly feels a whole lot longer than that. Something that was a tiny bit interesting was that the current university students didn't seem that overly interested in partying constantly and wanted to actually learn. Something Joanne would attempt to change making it all about her again and making everyone suffer with her singing of past 90s glory.
I have been quite the fan of Cobie Smulders for her work in How I Meet Your Mother and then the Marvel Universe. So I thought it would be great to see her leading a film but it really is not worth your time as it does not offer anything constructive and will leave you feeling very disappointed. Other than Smulders the rest of the cast are British with Richard Elis, who has been in both Eastenders and Coronation Street. Jessica Hynes who you will recognise from Bridget Jones's films, Harry Potter, Royale Family. Emily Atack who won the last series of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. Noel Clarke who also produced the film in a smaller role as well, who has been in Doctor Who and the Hood films although I still always associate him with Auf Wiedersehen Pet mainly because it is the first thing I had seen him in.
I really do feel it is such a shame that I found this film terrible as the idea behind it could have been really something inspiring. Showing how you can change your life and do things better improving yourself as a person. But it really failed to even do a tiny little bit of any of that.
I am not fully sure why the title was changed from Alright Now to Songbird. I would have preferred Alright Now as at least that gives you a little bit of an idea what they were possibly attempting to do?