Rating of
3/4
"Sing Street" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 04/24/17
A Dublin teenager is moved from private school to a rough Catholic comprehensive where he forms a band to impress a local girl. To call Sing Street "This Is England meets The Commitments" would be a lazy comparison, but not entirely inaccurate. It's a nostalgic trip back in time to the 1980's, when music was about rebellion, belonging and passion rather than the bland, corporate conveyor belt of TV talent show-spawned mediocrity it seems to have become. Being in the company of the likeable young cast is a fun way to spend a couple of hours, the scenes involving its star Ferdia-Walsh Peelo and his stoner older brother Jack Reynor resonating in particular, and John Carney's musical homages to the naive power pop of the period work find a perfect balance of cheesiness and catchiness. The period setting may play better to those of a certain age than a younger audience, and Sing Street is obviously a little contrived in the way that all of these "feelgood" films tend to be. I must admit that I usually find the genre somewhat more "feelsick", this particular example does exactly what it says on the tin.
