A Movie Review: Sing Street

Sing Street. Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) is growing up in Dublin. The year is 1985 and the economy is in the dumps. His father hasn't worked in awhile. His mother is working just 3 days a week. The family can no longer send Conor to his current school so he is sent to a Christian Brothers school, which is free (I'm thinking it was free). His first day is a mess. He walks into school and there are fights breaking out everywhere. He also unfortunately runs into the school bully. This encounter; however, hooks him up with a fellow student named Darren (Ben Carolan). As the two are leaving school one day, they notice a pretty young girl named Raphina (Lucy Boynton). Conor approaches her and learns that she wants to be a model. Conor quickly states that he's in a band and is looking for a model for his upcoming music video. The problem is that he has no band. To take care of that, Conor and Darren go off looking to start a band.

With inspirational help from Conor's brother Brendan (Jack Reynor), the band begins to develop their musical taste and style. As each song is develop, Raphina is the music video love interest. Conor falls for Raphina hard; however, Raphina currently has an older boyfriend and has dreams of moving to London.

Will Raphina eventually fall in love with Conor and leave her older boyfriend? What will become of this band with the catchy tunes?

This film was directed and written by John Carney who also is known for Once and Begin Again. With that, you know there are going to be some catchy tunes.

So how does this movie rank with those other two? I have my opinion and I'm sure others do, as well. I think I'll not rank them. Instead, I'll say that this is an excellent movie that gets you totally immersed in the 80s. There is something beautiful about the relationship between Conor and Raphina. Sure there is some teenage lust on Conor's part, but the underlying foundation of this relationship is an emotional connection. I also love the fact that this movie doesn't over-look certain aspects of the 80s that are inappropriate such as the gay jokes. It let's the viewer see how society changes and doesn't make these kids look like they are way ahead of their times.

Like all music films that have to wrap in a couple hours, there are my standard complaints. How did Conor learn to play the guitar when he initially stated to his band mates that he was just a singer? How did they progress to be such a great band in such a short period of time -- I've seen plenty of bands around Los Angeles who aren't nearly as good as Sing Street who were maybe together for a couple of months?  Why did Conor not know that his brother Brendan used to play the guitar? Admittedly, they were separated by 6 years, but did Conor never hear his brother practice? I will admit, I wish the movie had a different twist on the ending. I'm not saying that the decision that Conor and Raphina make at the end doesn't make sense as it totally makes sense in the context of the movie; however, I just think it could have been handled in a more realistic manner. In trying not to give away the ending, I'll just say that the ending is what two really stupid teenagers would attempt to do and would likely end up with them making major headlines in newspapers (of course, maybe that's the point).

Warning: accents are thick so it'll take a few minutes to understand what is being said. Luckily, Conor and Raphina are easy to understand, but some of the minor characters are more difficult to understand.