A Step You Can’t Take Back is heard a number of times throughout Begin Again. We open with Kiera Knightly’s Greta playing an acoustic version at an open mic night. It is a performance which exudes the hurt and anger that she feels.

We then watch Dan - played by Mark Ruffalo - hit rock bottom. We watch as his day get’s progressively worse until we winds up at that same bar, spending his last bit of money on a drink, as Greta takes the stage.

It is the same performance, however this time we see what is happening inside Dan’s head. We see and hear an arrangement begin to form around Greta. We see him become lost in the music - some of which only he can hear.

The version of the song I’ve chosen to highlight is this version. Where the first, stripped back version, tells you a lot about what Greta has gone through, this shows you everything that you need to know about Dan. In the space of this clip you see him going from drowning his sorrows and staring into the bottom of a glass, to standing, in a bar where no one else is listening, beaming, hopeful and excited through the power of the music.

Away of the music it is a story of learning who you are. Who you are outside a relationship. Who you are after as crisis of mental health. Who you are after hitting bottom, and who you are when you begin to climb back out, and how we can help each other, and ourselves, do that.

It is a film with a strong female lead in Greta, and a power dynamic between her and Dan which is refreshing to see in a film like this.

But Begin Again’s strongest moments are its musical ones. John Carney is a director who clearly understands music, and we will look at other films of his in later weeks, and it is a soundtrack that stands up on its own, away from the story.

And while A Step You Can’t Take Back may not be my favourite song in the film, it is a great example of storytelling, and how great direction can turn one of Begin Again’s more middling songs, into the greatest scene of the movie

Directed by: John Carney

Starring: Kiera Knightley. Mark Ruffalo, Adam Levine

UK Release Date: 27th June 2014