Hearts Beat Loud: Nick Offerman’s New Movie

This is not a movie review site, but I wanted to share a short take on Nick Offerman’s new movie, Hearts Beat Loud. As many of you know, Nick is an avid woodworker and proprietor of Offerman Woodshop in Los Angeles – that fact and my love for NBC’s, Parks and Rec., means that I watch everything that Nick takes part in.

So, while our kids shared an evening with their grandparents, my wife and I visited our local independent theater that had a showing of Hearts Beat Loud. I entered the theater with no expectation other than to see Nick’s latest work and I left with a grin and warm heart.

Frank, played by Nick Offerman, is the widowed father of Sam, played by Kiersey Clemons. The duo begins their last summer together before Sam starts medical school in the fall, as usual, Frank running his record shop and Sam working hard on her studies. An impromptu “jam sesh” leads to them recording a full song in their apartment. Sam doesn’t seem to think much of it, but Frank releases the song on Spotify.

A marvelous tension between the hopes of a father who hasn’t found his breakout hit after a lifetime of selling and playing music and a daughter who has her eyes set on becoming a physician unfolds over the course of the movie in a wildly endearing way. Together, they confront the hard road they’ve shared and sort out how to love one another in the midst of their changing relationship as father and daughter.

It’s a wonderful tale that leaves you with the most beautiful sense that anything is possible. There’s a lot more to the plot that I didn’t share, it seems that every character is making a transition into a different phase of life – something that we can all relate to. It’s a classic summer fling movie. I imagine that no matter what age you are when you walk into the theater, you’ll be taken back to memories of your best summer with your grandest dreams.

I told my wife on the drive home – the best fiction makes your non-fiction life feel better. This movie will probably be the only one that I see in theaters without children by my side this summer, and that’s okay. My summer is richer for it.

– David Lyell

Nick’s latest book, Good Clean Fun, is still available over at shopwoodworking.com.

After two New York Times bestsellers, Nick Offerman returns with the subject for which he’s known best—his incredible real-life woodshop.

Nestled among the glitz and glitter of Tinseltown is a testament to American elbow grease and an honest-to-god hard day’s work: Offerman Woodshop. Captained by hirsute woodworker, actor, comedian, and writer Nick Offerman, the shop produces not only fine handcrafted furniture, but also fun stuff—kazoos, baseball bats, ukuleles, mustache combs, even cedar-strip canoes.

Now Nick and his ragtag crew of champions want to share their experience of working at the Woodshop, tell you all about their passion for the discipline of woodworking, and teach you how to make a handful of their most popular projects along the way. This book takes readers behind the scenes of the woodshop, both inspiring and teaching them to make their own projects and besotting them with the infectious spirit behind the shop and its complement of dusty wood-elves.