The only difference between this film’s wispy indie pop music and 70s soft-rock AM Gold is that some of the performers here probably shave their pubic hair. These songs are ultra-smooth and twice as slick. They’re songs that pretty people with perfect teeth and hair sing when they’re sad. Even the word “fuck” somehow sounds tidy and tasteful in the mouths of these muppets. Also like those old Bread and solo Art Garfunkel hits, this film carries the scent of a guilty pleasure. It’s the ideal romanticized behind-the-scenes story of a girl singer-songwriter’s drama-fraught debut album. She (a stunning Keira Knightley) is in New York City, right off the plane from England. Her boyfriend (Adam Levine) is a major rising star. She’s a musician, too, but he won the celebrity lottery. In the course of playing the game, he cheats on her. She leaves him and intends to go back home, but after a few chance encounters (notably with grizzled ex-record company executive Mark Ruffalo), she stays in the city and channels her energy into her own music, recording in the streets with a hastily assembled band. Along the way, sentimental buttons get pushed, the soundtrack swells further with pop songs (mostly co-written by Gregg Alexander with several collaborators), characters have their little moments of redemption and a few soft hearts cry in the theater. To its credit, the film never gets too cute. Mark Ruffalo is downright repulsive at first. He’s a sloppy alcoholic mess presented without any jokes to sweeten him up. When he turns likable though, it’s believable, a skillful chord change in writer/director John Carney’s melody.