Sing Street (John Carney)

[Spinal]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/MV5BMjEzODA3MDcxMl5BMl5BanBnXk FtZTgwODgxNDk3NzE._V1_UY1200_C R9006301200_AL__zpsbn0qxysy.jp g

[Spinal]

I haven't seen a John Carney film since Once. But this one captures the prior film's magic with an exquisite depiction of young love, poverty and growing pains. It's also reminiscent of Lukas Moodysson's recent We Are the Best!, although a whole lot funnier. Clearly it's romanticized and the lead character gets good at playing guitar awfully quickly. But I was enjoying the music and the band's earnest pursuit of artistic expression too much to really care. I'm really glad I caught this one.

[dreamdead]

This is pretty decent, and a step up from the middling Begin Again. The one thing that that film had over this one is a more interesting dynamic in its focus on Knightley, since the girl here seems less of a character and more the typical MDPG.

If the film had been another half hour and delved into the other core band members in any way to flesh out their histories, I wouldn't have begrudged the film at all. The central love interest is the least interesting thing about Carney's film here, and the oddities that the film skirts--musical shifts and cultural diversity in the middle of lower class Dublin--is more interesting that the whole guy-forms-a-band-to-score-a-date angle. That said, the core songs that are fleshed out here are fun and energetic, especially the song played at school. And the fact that Carney gives the sister just a little bit of character development--allowing her entrance into the hallowed space of guys' rebellion when the lead and the older brother dance--suggests an awareness to at least attempt to showcase a modicum of women's experiences in the middle of wish fulfillment.

It's a sweet film, and it could sneak up on a lot of viewers who look at it with skepticism.

[Peng]

Great mix of humor and music, but the heart of the film unexpectedly belongs to Jack Reynor's brother character. His story sneaks up on me and it's pretty affecting.

[Henry Gale]

Yeah, I thought this was pretty effervescently charming while also sneaking quite a few simple comedic moments that absolutely killed me. One example being the ending of the first music video with the bassist getting his shot with the plastic fangs.

Somewhere in the last third I felt it like started to kinda lose its way for me though, especially in how it let the central relationship communicate with each other on screen (them sitting alone listening to/performing songs that help them sort out their feelings is nice, but it almost feels like they communicated telepathically otherwise) and where it decided to quickly push the ending of their story all of a sudden. Interestingly, I read a bit of an interview with Carney (http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/21/11477490/sing-street-john-carney-interview-once-begin-again) where said he wanted the final scene to have the ability to be read as more of fantasy / music video sequence in Conor and Raphina's head like the initial school dance one, but I didn't feel like it played that way at all, which for me just felt like the whole thing was a lot more tonally jarring as a result. He even expresses a bit of regret that maybe he didn't push that angle further.

But aside from whether or not it's as good where it goes, it's delightful and intermittently hysterical for more than a significant amount of it. I'm sure someone else has made the comparison already, but it is a nice little '80s music companion piece to Everybody Wants Some!! for the year.

***½ / 8.4

[transmogrifier]

This is a misshapen mess (with a lot of charm, but still a mess) that bizarrely enough wastes too much time running through its setlist and not nearly enough with all the more interesting ideas it flirts with an drops (like the brother dynamics or the big fantasy number that butts up against reality or the siblings dancing as a way to ignore the parents' argument, or amateurs coming together to create art and how they can spark off each other... and on and on and on). The band members are all glossed over for a terribly uninteresting love story of sorts with an unearned payoff that plays like Carney had no idea what to do for an ending...

[TGM]

Well this. Was. Lovely.