Sing Street

Mincing no words, I absolutely love John Carney’s Sing Street. At the end of the year, you can expect to see it in the top five of my 10-best-of-2016 list. It’s that good, and I’m that sure that time is not going to diminish my feelings for it. It is the third (and supposedly final) film in Carney’s series of movies about the redemptive value of music — specifically pop music, and, in this case, 1980s New Wave music (with first-rate new songs, some by Carney and Gary Clark). It completely regains the scrappy charms of the first film, Once (2007), that were lost with 2013’s more ambitious and mainstream Begin Again (though I now want to re-evaluate that). Gone are the movie stars of that second film (the biggest name in the cast here is Aidan Gillen, and he’s not in the film all that much). In their place are fresh-faced newcomers as the members of the band, aided by a few other far-from-name performers. And it all works, in part because Carney hasn’t so much made a movie about a bunch of teenagers in a rock band as he has created a rock band. It feels that authentic.

The film is at least nor’ by nor’west autobiographical. That is to say this tale of 15-year-old Dublin boy Cosmo (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) is less autobiographical than it is the story of Carney’s life as he wishes it had been. Fair enough. After all, the movies are — among other things — where you go to make right in art that which you couldn’t in “real life.” What’s most interesting is that the much put-upon Cosmo doesn’t form the Sing Street band out of a commitment to music. He wants to impress an older (by a year) girl, Raphina (Lucy Boynton), who seems very worldly compared to him and who’s agreed to be in the band’s video. (I suspect this kind of motivation has launched more than a few artistic endeavors throughout history.) But then the music becomes important in itself. In this regard, Sing Street reminded me of an Irish-flavored We Are the Best!, a 2014 Swedish film about 13-year-old girls forming a punk band — only with better music and more emotional pull.

Cosmo’s situation at the start of the film is precarious. His constantly battling parents (Aidan Gillen, Maria Doyle Kennedy) are suffering financially (along with most of Ireland in 1985, it seems) to the point where Cosmo has to endure being transferred to Synge Street school, a Catholic institution run by the Christian Brothers. It’s a rough place with a head bully, who zeroes in on Cosmo, and a creepy (possibly pedophile), sadistic, dictatorial headmaster, Brother Baxter (Don Wycherly), who constantly harasses him. The band — and the friendships he makes with his hastily assembled, but surprisingly adept, musicians — offers some escape from that. In addition, it gives some sense of purpose to Cosmo’s stoner brother (Jack Reynor), who has otherwise just given up but finds vicarious satisfaction mentoring Cosmo.

No, Sing Street is not realistic. It doesn’t mean to be. But it does hold on to its gritty side in a never-more-than-hopeful, but never-less-than-treacherous, picture of the lives these kids lead. Sure, the songs are more polished and sophisticated than seems likely, but it’s worth noting that we are often hearing these songs as they sound to the kids making the music. We are, for a moment, allowed their sense of pleasure, accomplishment and the limitless possibilities youth fleetingly seems to offer. In a way, this is possibly more realistic than traditional notions of realism. It’s a part of the generous magic with which this entire wonderful film is imbued. I cannot imagine a better time at the movies. Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, including strong language, some bullying behavior, a suggestive image, drug material and teen smoking.