Música (2024)

Rudy Mancuso, a charismatic but directionless young street performer from Newark's Ironbound neighborhood, has a unique view of the world. Thanks to a rare condition called synesthesia, he experiences everyday noises – from car horns to water droplets to doors slamming – as a series of complex rhythms. He struggles to keep the music in his head at bay, but it's not so easily accomplished.

When he's not taking classes to finish his college degree or staging puppet performances for commuters on the streets of the Ironbound's close-knit Brazilian community, Rudy is trying to convince his girlfriend, Haley (Francesca Reale), that he will eventually figure things out. He lives with his mother, Maria (played by the actor's real-life mother, Maria Mancuso), who wants her son to dump Haley and settle down with a nice Brazilian girl from the neighborhood. Rudy also gets advice on life and love from his best friend, Anwar (comedian J.B. Smoove), a food truck operator whose cultural identity morphs based on where his truck is parked on any given day.

Matters take a turn for the chaotic when Rudy is literally knocked out by a flying piece of frozen fish. The accident leads to an encounter with Isabella (Camila Mendes), a beautiful young Brazilian woman who works in the local fish market and who may understand Rudy in ways nobody else ever has. Caught in a love triangle, Rudy tries to balance his cultural heritage, the women in his life and the música inside his head.

An untraditional romantic comedy that moves to its own infectious beat, Música stars online sensation Rudy Mancuso, who based the film on his own experiences and also serves as the film's director, co-writer, composer and choreographer.