You really have to hand it to John Carney; to tackle the tricky medium of the musical film not once (pun intended) but three times and to do so successfully is pretty outstanding. If Once was his plaintive first album, full of delicate heartbreak and Begin Again was the uneven but rewarding second, then Sing Street is his 'hands in the air', silly-sweet celebration of a third. Like an established band with nothing to prove, Carney clearly feels free to let his hair down and revisit the music of his youth in a coming of age tale set in 1980s Dublin. As long as you turn your cynicism dial to zero, you'll be right there singing along with him.
Outspoken teenager Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) is having a tough time. His parents' marriage is breaking down in spectacular fashion and he has been forced to move to an inner city school where the students don't take kindly to his private school manners. Outside the school one day, he meets the beautiful and enigmatic Raphina (Lucy Boynton), a wannabe model. In an attempt to get close to her, Conor offers Raphina a part in his band's music video; just one problem – Conor doesn't have a band. The film follows Conor as he starts a band with fellow students, falls in love with music and attempts to win the girl of his dreams.
As a coming of age story, Sing Street certainly won't win any prizes for originality (the film even builds towards a performance at the school dance) but it is all done with such exuberance that it manages to be consistently entertaining. Carney uses flights of fancy to create a film that is both utterly specific to a time and place while also capturing a universal, timeless style of teenage wish-fulfilment. This tactic made me forgive him the odd mis-step from ‘80s verisimilitude; I certainly never had any American-style school dances in my schooldays…
Such mis-steps are only a minor quibble and most importantly for this kind of film, the music is spot-on. Conor and his band perform catchy pastiches that pay tribute to the biggest bands of the 1980s. The quality of the tunes is high and the young cast make for convincing musicians. Consequently, Sing Street captures that joyous feeling of falling in love with music, while giving the audience a jolly good time.