Awesome Music: Quite a few, given that among the contributing songwriters are Carole Bayer Sager, J Mascis, David Baerwald, Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach, but the outstanding one has to be the Costello/Bacharach 'God Give Me Strength'.
Tear Jerker: The scene by the pool where Joel confronts Denise with her refusal to get on with her life and her general grief-stricken numbness about Jay's death. He tells her off for betraying her talent, and she gets furious, rounding on him with a Cluster F-Bomb and screaming at him that he's been exploiting her all along and that without her, he'd be nothing. Instead of defending himself, Joel agrees with her until she gets so enraged that she loses control. Cue tears.
Values Dissonance: It's early 1960s America and Howard is a good liberal who believes in writing songs that highlight the difficulties faced by black Americans. Unfortunately, he consistently refers them as "Negroes". However, nobody around him bats an eyelid because this is Truth in Television: "Negro" was in common use at the time and it didn't start to be widely considered as offensive until later in the decade.
