SING STREET (2016) FILM REVIEW

Credits to Grid City Magazine

This movie is a VHS era fairy tale, bubble gum pink against the bleak backdrop of working class 80s Dublin – I’m talking when Top of The Pops was not just a show but a way of life, when the emergence of the music video was believed to be an art form (despite the badly executed lip-syncing) – all set to a soundtrack that is not to be missed.

The story follows 14-year-old Conor, who we meet playing his guitar singing (quite badly) a song he had written in order to block out his home life that is unravelling at the seams, what with his family’s financial difficulties and the decline of his parents’ relationship. Despite the fact that his musical abilities at this point are noticeably poor, this is a vital element of the movie. Though he is not particularly talented, he, like many other teenagers back then and to this day, was seeking peace in the refuge of music. It isn’t about being talented. It is about passion – and passion, as Sing Street proves, takes you to places that mere talent can’t.

After being moved to a rough inner city school due to his parents’ budgeting, Conor is inducted into a new society of kids who spit in the street and engage in violence, living in poor housing estates with dysfunctional backgrounds. Across the road from school, he meets the beautiful and beguiling Raphina: a self-proclaimed model with ambition. This is the anonymous girl behind every song you’ve ever loved, Raphina is the “she”. Completely besotted with her neon pink lips and blue eyes, Conor somehow persuades her to act in a music video – for a band he hasn’t even formed yet.

What we see from here is an evolution, the kind of evolution that we all, as teenagers, go through: tragic hairstyles that we’re sure to regret, experimentation with makeup – just a trial and error of the person we want to become. In the meantime, Conor befriends a group of misfit lads who share in his love for music and form the band “Sing Street” (derived from Synge Street).

Though their first attempts at music recorded in the guitarist’s living room on Mondays and Wednesdays after school were non-starts, under the mentoring of Conor’s older college dropout brother, the band reach a quality and dedication to their music that makes you wonder, “Could these guys really go places?”.  Fuelled by the desire to impress Raphina and the bands unified passion for their work, you sit back and realise what can be achieved with that exhilarating teen spirit that doesn’t seem to carry across to adult life. It’s glorious.

Cast of Sing Street: (left to right) Jack Reynor (Brenden); Mark

McKenna (Eamon); Lucy Boynton (Raphina); Ferdia Walsh-Peelo

(Conor); John Carney (director)

Beneath all of this, there is a deeper core to the Sing Street that I find incredibly poignant. Conor idolises his older brother, Brendan. When Conor played him his first recording of a cover performed by the band, Brenden breaks the tape telling him “You're gonna use somebody else's art to get her (Raphina)? Are you kidding?”. Brenden’s love for music – for the “art” – completely influences Conor’s life. Every opinion Brendan has on music is gospel to Conor. Nothing Conor does is at all original, everything he does has its roots in Brendan. The true sadness to this film is Brendan’s role in his brother’s life. Conor is out there achieving everything that Brendan wanted to achieve but never did, and now all there is left for him is to live vicariously through him. The director, after all, dedicated this film to “brothers everywhere” – which is a touching sense of realism for an otherwise fairy tale-like narrative.

What really sets this movie apart, and what will undoubtedly make you fall in love with it, is the finger-popping original soundtrack, influenced by the great chart-topping names of the era, including The Jam, The Cure and Duran Duran. Perhaps the greatest of all the songs is the original piece Drive It Like You Stole It: I heard this song on the trailer prior to watching it and desperately searched for it, because it has such an 80s Hall & Oates feel-good vibe that was absolute ear candy. There is an element of dedication lost in other films of the music genre. If you are a lover of music, of laughing and crying, and wishing you could dress just like them, then let me give you the directions to Sing Street.