Sing Street

Once director John Carney hits it out of the park again with his winning indie musical formula, this time applying it to an 80s coming-of-age story

John Carney’s latest film is joyous and infectious, just like the 80s pop music that it riffs on. Carney’s previous features (Once, Begin Again) were charming and affecting, but his latest is even more so.

While coming of age in Dublin in the 80s, Cosmo (played with affable positivity by Ferdia Walsh Peelo) must juggle an unhappy home life, a disaffected brother (Jack Reynor, who almost steals the film) and a strict new school. A happy distraction appears in the form of Raphina (a beguiling Lucy Boynton), a would-be model. He offers her a role in his band’s music video, and she tentatively agrees, leaving Cosmo with two notable hurdles: he needs a band and he needs a song.

Even if your own youth had nothing in common with the specifics of Cosmo’s, you’re likely to find plenty to chime with the experiences of growing up. Sing Street is, quite possibly, the best film about the coming-of-age experience since Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me. The 80s soundtrack is great, albeit (knowingly) dated, and the original songs (particularly Drive It Like You Stole It) are superb.

Carney has managed to show all of the melancholy and loneliness of youth, but has counterbalanced it with so much joy and enthusiasm that you’ll be left reeling.

Extras

Extras include a music video of Adam Levine performing Go Now – the film’s closing song, as well as a Making Of about how he came to sing it. If it had been performed by Cosmo and his band then the song might have worked, but as it stands, Go Now is the film’s weak link. The last extra sees part of the Sing Street band (Walsh-Peelo and Mark McKenna) performing A Beautiful Sea live at the Sundance Film Festival. It’s mostly notable for how Walsh-Peelo appears to have morphed into Casanova since filming Sing Street.