Sing Street **** (2016, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Aidan Gillen, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Jack Reynor, Lucy Boynton, Mark McKenna) – Movie Review

Ferdia Walsh-Peelo stars as Connor ‘Cosmo’ Lawler, a teenage boy growing up in Dublin during the mid-Eighties, who escapes his strained family life with his parents (Aidan Gillen, Maria Doyle Kennedy) by starting a new romantic pop band with his buddy Eamon (Mark McKenna) to impress Raphina (Lucy Boynton), the gorgeous, mysterious older girl he meets and instantly adores.

She agrees to join the band, so he has to create one! Meanwhile, though, so his parents can save money Connor is transferred to the horrible local Catholic boys school, where he’s made an outcast by the authoritarian, abusive headmaster. Jack Reynor co-stars as Conor’s stoner older brother Brendan, fallen already into a pit of cynical disillusion, but wise (and kind) beyond his years. 

Writer-director John Carney’s music comedy drama Sing Street is sweet, lovely, amusing and such fun! In his only acting credit, the kid Ferdia Walsh-Peelo is just great, a star is born. I have to say this film is as predictable as, well whatever you think is most predictable, but it manages to pull it off triumphantly, escapist, feel-good happy ending and all. So there’s nothing wrong with predictable, after all, as long as you do it right.

They have the misfortune to release in the same week as X-Men: Apocalypse. It’s a very different kind of movie, so this small but beautiful film may survive the squeeze. Let’s sincerely hope so.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Movie Review

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