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Apr 12, 2016 By Sarah Winshall Web Exclusive

Amber Heard is Jude, a young musician stuck in a rut and unable to make it in the big city. She heads back to her family home, a suburban mansion in the Hamptons, hoping to find clarity and get back on her feet. The only problem: she and her father, famous but aging crooner Paul (Christopher Walken) don’t exactly get along for reasons never fully explored. As a matter of fact, almost none of the plot points discussed, issues raised, or relationships deemed complicated are well-defined. Jude’s life in New York is never actually depicted as the train wreck implied by the film’s plot, nor does her relationship with her father seem so terrible.

Writer/director Robert Edwards’ impression of his own film doesn’t match what made it to the screen, and the result is a mess of confused platitudes, clichéd dramatic moments, and a whole lot of embarrassing exposition delivered by peripheral characters who seem to exist in the film only to deliver awkward monologues explaining the conflicts painfully absent from the film’s action.

To make matters worse, One More Time relies heavily on an original soundtrack from The Psychedelic Furs keyboardist Joe McGinty to give it an edge over other sloppily-constructed dysfunctional family dramas. Too bad even that is a disaster, featuring forgettable songs that elicit absolutely no emotional response and fail to enhance the action of the film.

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Author rating: 2/10