Review: 'Hallelujah' reveals the secrets behind 'the secret chord,' and the highs and lows of Leonard Cohen's singular career

Yes, we’ve all heard there was a secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord — but the really good stories in the documentary “Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song” are the ones about the man who wrote that much-loved and sometimes overused song, the Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen.

The story of Leonard Cohen starts as a kid in Montreal, Quebec, and moves to New York, where he starts working as a songwriter. Pitching one of his early songs, “Suzanne,” to Judy Collins, already a star, Collins’ response is that she’ll record the song the next day. She did and it was a hit. Collins is one of the numerous admirers of Cohen interviewed in the film.

Soon, Cohen is recording his own songs, and getting a reputation as the kind of songwriter other songwriters admire. Oddly, though, the song that would ultimately become his signature, “Hallelujah” — which took Cohen years to write — was on an album that his label, Columbia Records, refused to release in the United States.

The movie takes a circuitous route at this point, to delve into how “Hallelujah” became an iconic song. Firstly, Cohen started performing it live with a different set of lyrics, trading in the spiritual references for an earthier, more carnal flavor. Standing before the Lord of Song was out, replaced by “I remember when I moved in you / And the holy dove she was moving too.”

And soon other performers took up the song. John Cale, of the Velvet Underground, recorded a stunning cover. So did Jeff Buckley, which became so recognizable that many people — particularly after Buckley died tragically young — thought he had written it. Then, in 2001, the makers of “Shrek” put some of Cale’s cover (minus the naughty bits) in the movie, and it soon became a go-to song for stuffing a soundtrack with added emotion. (Fun fact: The “Shrek” soundtrack album used Rufus Wainwright’s cover rather than Cale’s, because Wainwright was signed to DreamWorks’ record label.)

The husband-and-wife directing team of Daniel Seller and Dayna Goldfine — whose past films include “Ballets Russes” and “The Galapagos Affair: When Satan Came to Eden” — got access to a wealth of information and footage of Cohen. They use it beautifully, including a sequence toward the end that seamlessly fuses a dozen late-career live performances of “Hallelujah,” after he had overcome his ambivalence about the song’s success, into a single sterling rendition.

If you hate the song “Hallelujah,” you won’t like this movie, because it plays Cohen’s version repeatedly, along with some striking covers — Cale and Buckley and Wainwright, of course, but also Brandi Carlile (who talks about how the song came along as she was reconciling her faith with her homosexuality) and k.d. lang, who sang the song at the Canadian memorial service after Cohen’s death in 2016. (It’s even better than her rendition during the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, which was amazing.)

If you’re not a fan of Cohen, “Hallelujah” the documentary could turn you into one, as it depicts him as a incredibly thoughtful and introspective writer, who considered songwriting a craft that improved with practice and hard work. It’s clear that Cohen could stand before that Lord of Song with a lot more on his tongue than simply “Hallelujah” — but that one song would be enough.

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‘Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song”

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, August 5, at several theaters. Rated PG-13 for brief strong language and some sexual material. Running time: 118 minutes.