LA TIMES: The low-key musical 'Becks' is messy but authentic and compelling

Though the low-key musical "Becks" packs a lot into its first four minutes — including a cross-country move, a breakup and a drive halfway back across the States — it spends the rest of its time leisurely exploring the titular character's return to her hometown of St. Louis. It's all set to an appealing soundtrack of gentle folksy pop, sung by Tony winner Lena Hall, who also stars.

Homecoming is a standard indie trope, but "Becks" remixes the formula with engaging results. After she ends things with her girlfriend (Hayley Kiyoko) after driving to L.A., Becks (Hall) is stuck in the middle between a life she left behind in New York and what she thought she'd have in California.

Read more at the LA TImes

THE VILLAGE VOICE: “Becks” Is an Understated Musical About Arrested Development

With Becks, directors Elizabeth Rohrbaugh and Daniel Powell have crafted an understated musical that really works, thanks to Alyssa Robbins’s heartfelt music and standout performances from the cast. Brooklyn singer-songwriter Becks (Lena Hall) has everything she wants: a moderately successful music career, a cute girlfriend, and a move to Los Angeles on the horizon. But after a brutal betrayal, she loses everything and moves back into her mom’s house in St. Louis, where her room remains unchanged from her teen years.

Becks, played with a devil-may-care slacker attitude by Broadway vet Hall, is the type of thirtysomething who leaps before she looks, which clashes with the very mindful lifestyle her pious mother (Christine Lahti) has crafted since her children left home. As Becks seeks refuge outside the house...

Read more here

NY TIMES Review: In ‘Becks,’ a Guitarist With the Blues Returns Home

A description of “Becks,” about a lesbian musician who returns to the more conservative environment in which she grew up, makes it sound like an earnest, shopworn indie drama. But the movie exemplifies how small judgments in pace, performance and soundtrack can transcend modest trappings.

Much of the credit is due to the film’s charismatic, tone-perfect lead, Lena Hall...

Continue reading here

VARIETY.COM FILM REVIEW: ‘BECKS’

Tony winner Lena Hall plays the title figure, a 30-ish lesbian musician back under her mother's roof after a romance goes bust. 

“Becks” is the kind of modest, non-earthshaking indie enterprise that ends up being so satisfying mostly because it’s about a character type familiar from real life but all too under-represented at the movies. In this case, that’s a woman — played with consummate lived-in assurance by Broadway veteran Lena Hall — whose primary personality traits would be considered banally typical if she were a slacker-type dude, yet they can still seem exotic and frightening to some when they come in the form of a young lesbian.

Read the rest of the review in Variety

Los Angeles Daily News: LA Film Festival Ends On A High Note...

...

“Becks,” which took the U.S. Fiction Jury prize, was a well-wrought choice in every way. Tony Award-winner Lena Hall is just perfect in the title character’s many imperfect ways, as a heartbroken lesbian singer-songwriter forced to retreat from the coasts to her religious mom’s (Christine Lahti) suburban St. Louis home for awhile. Becks drinks too much, writes and sings terrifically, says terrible things to those closest to her, has a winning sense of humor and also an extremely hot, ill-advised affair with Mena Suvari’s bored local housewife. Hall does a marvelous job of keeping Becks self-laceratingly smart and sympathetic, except when she shouldn’t be, through most of Daniel Powell and Elizabeth Rohrbaugh’s movie, which they shot just a little better than your average indie dramedy (and which kind of makes a good deal of difference).

Keep reading here

LA Film Festival Review: ‘Becks’ Provides a Fresh, Lesbian Romance

The genre of LGBTQ+ films seems predominantly concerned with gay men stories. This makes a film like “Becks” so refreshing. A lesbian romantic drama, the film wears its identity on its sleeve without making it the sole focus of the feature. Instead, the film acts as a lovely and complicated portrait of arrested development.

Read the rest of the review here.

via awardscircuit.com

THR 'Becks': Film Review | LAFF 2017

Inspired by the life of singer-songwriter Alyssa Robbins, the movie boasts an eclectic cast headed by Lena Hall, Mena Suvari and Christine Lahti.

If the success of La La Land helped to demonstrate the durability of the movie musical, perhaps there will be an audience for Becks, which had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Certainly this appealing character-driven musical deserves to find an audience. The lesbian central character should ensure exposure on the LGBT festival circuit, but the cast and the music are so engaging that the film could resonate beyond that niche market.

Read on at The Hollywood Reporter

LA Film Festival Review: Becks is a refreshing take on post breakup stories

Relationships may plummet but losing the one with the self can be the most devastating, especially after the destruction from a break up.   The heartfelt ‘Becks’ made its premiere on June 15 at the LA Film Festival as an entry in the US Fiction competition.

Although it may have a plot similar to many of the those other “rebuilding oneself” stories, the rawness in the details, such as her inside out t-shirt she wears during her at-home sulk, the cunning one-liners she shares between her brother and ex-boyfriend (Dan Folger) and the strong relationship development that takes place, truly make it a joy to watch.

“Becks” speaks to anyone following the painful suits of a break up, whether that be romantic, plutonic or even a relationship that has gone astray within a family, especially through the reminiscent details such as gardening, fixing leaky faucets and binge-watching “junk” TV or anything that could keep the mind busy to curb the aching...

Keep reading here

Source: www.socalmuse.com