The Greatest Hits is a more mature, less YA version of the film Press Play from 2022. Both are lite-Sci-fi romance/rom-coms about a girl who discovers she can travel when she hears certain songs. She then tries to prevent her boyfriend from dying in the past… but it’s never that easy.

Greatest Hits’ take on that premise is more thoughtful, sad, mature, and romantic. Due to the accident that killer her boyfriend, she has to wall herself off from the world lest she hear a song that triggers a time travel event. She meets a cute guy in the present and has to struggle with what others in her life think is traumatic brain injury… but she wants to be with him and its a challenge when the chance to save her old boyfriend is triggered.

It isn’t exactly a consistently interesting film… there’s moments in the middle that feel saggy. And then the flick hit me with a sweet and romantic moment that I didn’t see coming. In fact, its present-day romance is so good that it having a sci-fi time travel angle often felt like an afterthought.

I enjoyed the present-day romantic couple more than I did the past couple… which is kind of a problem. For the move to exist, she winds up a kind of Cassandra-type character that her past boyfriend can’t believe when she tries to warn him about the future. He ends up feeling condescending and arrogant which I’m pretty sure wasn’t the intended take. Puts a little pin in the whole saving him so they can be together argument.

Other than that little problem, I rather liked this film. I think it’s a better take on the premise than Press Play as it feels more mature. The acting is good and the romance believable… even when the sci-fi bit got in the way of the romance bit.

Score: 78