“It’s like you’re physically affecting people without ever touching them,” Isa (Addie Weyrich) tells her brother Mauro (Daniel Rashid) as she cooks up some eggs in the morning for them both in “Downbeat,” marveling at what doesn’t seem all that remarkable to him. An out-of-work session player who has set up his kit on the streets to make money, he sees drumming as an act of desperation these days, but in his younger sister’s eyes, he’s creating good vibrations, able to draw people over to listen as they’re on their way to work in Boston. As he plays, director Danny Madden allows you to hear both the positive energy that Mauro is putting out into the world and the relentless pressure of keeping up a tempo that never lets up in the invigorating drama where the dummer has to start seeing an endgame in the freeform expression.
From the moment Mauro spots a few buckets being tossed out at a Chinese restaurant as he sits outside with the chow mein he’s barely been able to scrap up enough cash for, “Downbeat” clearly is going to get by on having just that extra bit of creativity to make it stand out, following the musician north from Atlanta where playing background is neither all that rewarding artistically or all that lucrative when he has to expend more energy getting a producer to pay him. He doesn’t seem to be welcome much of anywhere when he’s told by an ex over the phone that he only brings more chaos and he isn’t sure about staying with Isa after the two haven’t been in touch for some time, simply having gone their separate ways, but when his bank account is overdrawn by $43, he doesn’t have many options and while he’s welcomed with open arms by his sister, he inadvertently finds himself in a bit of an awkward situation when she isn’t exactly on the best of terms with her roommate Mal (Arkira Chantaratananond).
The trio of main actors are all given a screenplay credit alongside Madden, nodding to the heavily improvised nature of the production which extends to Rashid really setting up in public spaces to perform on the drums for strangers, and “Downbeat” gets the juice from that live-wire approach without much of the slack that usually accompanies it. In part that’s due to Madden’s post-production wizardry as an editor and sound designer where the frenzied cutting style and spatial consciousness of every environment brings alive the sense of chaos that constantly surrounds Mauro, but in fact there is also a strong backbone to the drama pushing it forward when you start to consider how much of that the character has brought upon himself.
At first, Mauro seems as if he simply had the bad luck to be born to pursue the arts and hasn’t caught the right breaks, yet increasingly it looks like he’s made some of his own when against his better judgment he and Mal start sleeping together, likely bound to upset his sister should she find out, and a defensive crouch about seeking artistic purity he tells himself and others who ask about why he’s playing on the streets holds some truth when he clearly does it for joy, but also is revealed to be due to an inability to compromise even in the slightest that has led to him being a solo act in all aspects of his life, much to his detriment.
However, in spite of what its title might suggest, there isn’t much time spent wallowing in “Downbeat” and the fact that the beat goes on becomes as much a testament to how Mauro rolls with the punches as what’s accepted by others, not to mention himself, when his gift is obvious but it’ll excuse any accountability that could help him grow into a more responsible adult. It’s telling that some of the plot mechanics can feel like a distraction from the art as Madden effortlessly puts together sensational sequences that will make one’s hair stand on end as Mauro will get in his groove performing (or Isa, for that matter when Weyrish delivers a stirring performance on the piano when nudged to sing), but inevitable scenes of confrontation between him and his sister or Mal can seem like an obligation, sharing the same frenetic energy to reflect the heat of the moment, but it’s as if the language both the main character and the filmmaker are most comfortable in is the music, sometimes going through the motions simply to get back there.
Then again, the pull is understandable when it’s rarely conveyed with as much verve and vigor as Madden can muster and as Mauro’s instincts about where he should go next in life start to resemble his deft abilities on the drums, the film irresistibly balances the gravity of his situation with the transcendent space that he can create for himself simply by picking up a pair of sticks. By tapping into the entire world that lives inside of him, the film shows how easy it is for Mauro to get lost but also the thrill of actually reaching uncharted territory in something that seems so familiar, finding a way to transform the ordinary into instruments with the potential for change.
“Downbeat” does not yet have U.S. distribution.