Taglines: You’ve got to start at the sottom sefore you take it to the top.
The High Note Movie Storyline. Maggie Sherwoode (Dakota Johnson) is the longtime personal assistant to legendary R&B singer Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross) who still has a successful touring career despite not releasing new material for a decade. Maggie is also an aspiring music producer, remixing Grace’s songs in her free time. Grace’s manager, Jack Robertson (Ice Cube), believes that her time has passed and she should accept a Las Vegas residency and continue releasing live albums rather than record new material.
At a grocery store, Maggie meets aspiring musician David Cliff and watches him perform outdoors. He invites her to a party at his house, where to her surprise she learns that despite slumming it as a musician he is quite wealthy. Impressed by his voice, she lies about being a professional producer and offers to work with him on an album. He accepts and the two begin work together with Maggie coaching him through his nerves.
Grace is displeased when a famous music producer remixes one of her songs to modernize it with excessive synths and pop elements. Appalled, Maggie shows Grace her own version of the song, and Grace decides to release Maggie’s version, without payment or credit. While Maggie is pleased to be producing for Grace, Jack pulls her aside to reveal how her tactlessness ruined potential future deals.
Grace later expresses her interest in recording a new album to her record label. They discourage the idea and push her towards the Vegas residency to Grace’s embarrassment. Maggie encourages Grace to disregard the label and create new material but Grace lectures her on how women of her age and race rarely succeed in music.
Maggie and David begin a romance as recording for his demo comes to a close. At the same time, Maggie learns that Ariana Grande has backed out of opening for Grace’s album launch. She initially books Dan Deakins to open for Grace before realizing the album launch would be the perfect place for David to perform his songs. She enlists Dan’s assistant to help but is surprised when Dan himself, after listening to David’s songs, decides to step away to allow him to perform.
On the night of the party, Maggie tells Jack and Grace that Dan has backed out and promises to fix it. She then asks David, who believed they were going on a date, to sing. After hearing that the party is for Grace Davis, David leaves in a huff, refusing to perform. Maggie tells Jack and Grace she was unable to deliver a backup performer and Grace berates her, mocking her ambitions to become a producer when she cannot even succeed as an assistant before firing her.
Maggie moves back home with her father Max, a radio DJ, and starts planning her future. After encouragement from her father, Maggie reaches out to David to continue work on their album and to Grace to thank her for her time working for her. At the same time, Grace realizes that she misses Maggie who was a faithful assistant who never used her.
The High Note is a 2020 American comedy-drama film directed by Nisha Ganatra and written by Flora Greeson. The film stars Dakota Johnson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Zoë Chao, Bill Pullman, Eddie Izzard, and Ice Cube, and follows a famous singer’s personal assistant who wants to become a music producer.
The High Note was released in selected theaters, and through Premium VOD on May 29, 2020. It was originally scheduled for a wide theatrical release on May 8, 2020, but due to movie theater closures that started in mid-March because of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, it was cancelled.
The film made $87,800 from 50 theaters (mostly drive-ins) in its opening weekend.[16] In its third weekend it made $59,000 from 64 theaters, for a running total of $293,000. By June 28, the film had grossed $420,000 in the United States. The film was also released in several overseas countries with relaxed COVID-19 theater restrictions, including South Korea, the Netherlands and France, and grossed $1.7 million, as of August 28.
The High Note (2020)
Directed by: Nisha Ganatra
Starring: Dakota Johnson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Zoë Chao, Ice Cube, Jonathan Freeman, June Diane Raphael, Deniz Akdeniz, Bill Pullman, Eddie Izzard, Melanie Griffith
Screenplay by: Flora Greeson
Production Design by: Theresa Guleserian
Cinematography by: Jason McCormick
Film Editing by: Wendy Greene Bricmont
Costume Design by: Jenny Eagan
Set Decoration by: Melissa M. Levander
Art Direction by: Erika Toth
Music by: Amie Doherty
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some strong language, and suggestive references.
Distributed by: Focus Features
Release Date: May 29, 2020
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