Disney Channel Musical Month - Lemonade Mouth

I’ve got a confession to make, I’ve never actually seen Breakfast Club.

I know, take away all my film credentials… Oh wait, I never had any, I’m just some idiot with opinions. Anyway, in this chapter of Disney Channel Musical Month, we’re looking at Lemonade Mouth.

Based on the book by Mark Peter Hughes, Lemonade Mouth was released in 2011 to a mostly positive reception but unlike the ones we’ve covered so far this isn’t flamboyant and over the top, it is in fact a character-driven diegetic musical. Does it work, well, let’s take a look.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one, students meet in detention. What did they get detention for, well it turns out that Olivia White (Bridget Mendler) did so for reading in the cleaning cupboard, Wen Gifford (Adam Hicks) had an embarrassing incident when he and his father’s very young girlfriend got their project files mixed and he ended up showing photography as opposed to his history project; Stella Yamanda (Hayley Kiyoko) decides to show her rebel streak by sparking a protest about wearing ‘provocative’ slogans on shirts on her first day at this school; Mo Banjeree (Naomi Scott) tried to skip school with her boyfriend and Charlie Delegado (Blake Michael) who after a disastrous soccer try-out, threw a ball at a student and it ended up hitting the coach.

Each of these students have issues at home. Olivia’s mother is dead, I think and her father is in prison leaving her with only her forgetful grandmother and her dying cat, she also has chronic stage-fright. Wen is having real issues adjusting to her father dating someone a good 14 years younger than him, even as their relationship grows more serious. Stella feels trapped at home, her parents are focused on work and even her twin brothers seem more intelligent than her. Mo’s father believes she should avoid boys and focus on her academia and extra credit, she’s also having issues with her boyfriend Scott (Nick Roux) who seems to be the school’s golden boy between being a soccer star and a member of the rival band, Mudslide. Charlie meanwhile feels he has to live up to his parents’ expectations as his brother was a soccer star (He moved to college) despite this, he doesn’t care for soccer and has more of a passion for drumming.

Note: I’m using the term Soccer instead of football for this review simply because it’s an American film and in America football is a completely different (and inferior) sport.

Detention is in the music room, in the basement it and most other extra-curriculars had been moved there following a sports sponsorship deal the school had taken. In there the 5 find an old lemonade machine with cans that look almost like jam-jars. Whilst sitting in silence, the 5 manage to make a tune out of noises going on around them.

Very impressed, the Music teacher running the detention suggests they form a band, and the next day Stella has entered them in a big music competition. They are successful but it isn’t easy as they all have to deal with personal issues and circumstances beyond their control.

I really enjoyed Lemonade Mouth. I like character-focused drama like this. The stakes aren’t high but they don’t have to be, each of the characters are likeable, even if their actors are complete scumbags like Adam Hicks (Yeah, since my previous mention of him he was sentenced to 5 years for armed robbery, I was too nice in my Mighty Med review)

And whilst there’s obviously some Disney polish in places, the music feels more like it could’ve happened there unlike songs from previous musicals where it’s obvious it’s been recorded in a booth and layered onto the film. Determinate is an obvious favourite among the soundtrack though there are other decent songs in the soundtrack.

Oddly my least favourite are the tracks by Mudslide. I know they want to make them insufferable and their songs are by intention purely ego driven but “Don’t you wish you were us” feels reminiscent of “Me Too” by Meghan Trainor, a song that sounds so self-centred and pretentious it practically killed her career. I know Lemonade Mouth don’t win the song competition as 4/5 of them are either ill or injured, but I hope Mudslide didn’t either.

All of the characters have relateable backstories and troubles, even if there are some minor changes from the book. Still, there’s one change I draw issue with and that is Mo getting back together with Scott at the end, with his redemption arc of sorts. In the book she moves on from him and starts dating Charlie instead. I think moving on speaks more to her empowerment whether she gets together with Charlie or not.

Speaking of Charlie, his backstory gets the most substantial modification from the book. In the book, his twin brother was stillborn and he lives in a constant state of wondering why he was the one to live. I think there are ways you could do that whilst still making it child-friendly enough. Or I would’ve gone for the brother being dead, which would explain why his parents place those high expectations on him, in the film, it’s the weakest and least well explored element solved by his brother showing up alive and giving a motivating speech and agreeing to do something together, off-screen.

One thing I noticed on this watch-through is that the visual quality of the film is quite low, it looked very grainy and I know Disney Channel stuff started filming in HD circa 2009, so I’m not sure why this is. 

Lemonade Mouth is about as Down to Earth as Disney Musicals get, and it’s great with character drama that’s both relateable and well-performed, with a great cast of actors and singers (yes, even Adam Hicks, I can’t deny his rapping talent). It was intended as a springboard for a franchise but works well enough as a standalone entity.

Rating 75/100