Steve story

Steve (James Corden) is singing in a small pub. 

 He asks the crowd if they want to hear his friend Gretta (Keira Knightley) play.  They do.  Quickly though, they don’t even care that she looks like Natalie Portman and everyone in the bar starts chattering…except for Dan (Mark Ruffalo).  He’s enchanted and in zero danger of hulking out.

Earlier that day:  Dan struggles to wake up, until he finds out he has to pick his daughter Violet (Hailee Steinfeld) up from school.  He works at a record label and hates all the demos he’s forced to listen to.  He also constantly drinks from a flask.  Violet dresses like she’s in a rap video.

Dan takes Violet to his office where he thinks he might have a meeting.  Yep and he’s late!  His partner Saul (Mos Def) is none too pleased.  Dan shoots down Saul’s new plan (which, truth be told, sounded kinda neat) of having artists record commentary tracks for their albums.  Saul and Dan butt heads, then Dan is fired from the record label they started togethe

Dan and Violet go to the bar.  Dan is broke and asks his 14 year old daughter to pay.  Naturally she’s broke too.  Kids these day, right?  They dine and dash, but the bartender catches up to them and pops Dan in the nose…in perhaps one of the coolest ninja punches in cinema history.

Dan takes Violet home to her mom Miriam (Catherine Keener).  She tells her mom about their day.  Miriam is obviously super mad and Catherine Keeners out on Dan (tells him to get his act together).  It’s never clear, but it doesn’t seem like they’re divorced because both wear their rings even though he has moved out.

Steve (James Corden) is singing in a small pub.  He asks the crowd if they want to hear his friend Gretta (Keira Knightley) play.  They do.  Quickly though, they don’t even care that she looks like Natalie Portman and everyone in the bar starts chattering…except for Dan (Mark Ruffalo).  He’s 

Steve invites Gretta up on stage to play.  Everyone grows disinterested, but in his inebriated state, Dan imagines what the song would sound like with a full arraignment.  He imagines instruments playing themselves and it’s really Disney-like (only in the pub it probably smells like stale beer).

He tells Gretta he wants to sign her.  She’s not interested and blows him off.  He waits for her outside and confesses that he’s been fired from his own record label and couldn’t sign her if he wanted to, but her song was amazing.  Earlier in the night he wanted to jump in front of the subway, but that song changed everything.  They go to a bar and she looks him up online to find he’s the real deal.  He tells her he’d like to take her to his old label.  She’ll think about it.

She goes home and thinks about it in the form of an iPhone commercial.  We flashback to her first arriving in New York with her pop star boyfriend Dave Grohl..er…Dave Kohl played by pop star Adam Levine, making movies and listening to music on their iPhone.  The record label has set Dave up in a sweet suite.

Dave and Gretta go to the label and we meet creepy CEO McDreamy (Rob Morrow).  You know he’s creepy because he has a samurai pony tail.  He introduces them to the staff, which includes shy Yoko…oops…Mim.

starting to open up to him again.

Gretta asks Dan about the headphone splitter he has hanging from his rearview mirror.  He explains that on his first date with Miriam, they walked around listening to music together with it.  Gretta and Dan walk around listening to music together on her amazingly versatile iPhone.  They bond deeply.  He takes her back home and she gets drunk with Steve.  She writes a drunken F.U. song to Dave and leaves it on his voicemail.

Gretta’s band is in place to record the final song on a rooftop.  Dave listens to his voicemail and texts her on her iPhone (this thing texts too!).  He has a super crazy beard now, because he’s really changed.  She texts him back that they should meet.  She records the final song.  Violet joins in on guitar.  Dan plays bass.  Everyone has a good time.  Later they celebrate.  Gretta offers Dan a toast, but he says he’s going to try not drinking for awhile. 

Gretta meets 

Dave play live.  He’s shaved!  He starts to play her song the way she wrote it and invites her on stage.  The song starts to build and build into his album version.  She realizes he’s not the person she thought he was, cries and leaves.

Dan gives a copy of Gretta’s CD to Violet.  She’s geeked that she’s on it.  He tells her the family should start a band, kind of like the Jackson Five, but the McSomething (I didn’t catch their last name and couldn’t find it online) Three.  The family is back together.

Saul and everyone at the label love the album and want to put it out.  Gretta will get one dollar from each copy.  She says she’ll sign if Dan gets his job back, but doesn’t see why the label should make $9 for every $1 the artists make since the artists did all the work.  She tells them she’ll think about it.

Later she and Dan put the album online for a buck a copy and note that all the money will go to the artists.  CeeLo tweets about it and they sell 10,000 copies the first day.  Saul is mad and lets Dan go again.

And they lived happily ever after.