Funny, sweet, joyful movie with a lot of heart

Rating: 9/10 (3 January 2017)

'Sing Street' is set in Dublin during the 80's, when teenager Conor, subliminally portrayed by Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, is forced to change schools due to the incapability of his parents to make ends meet. Across the street from his new school, where the protagonist is challenged by the new environment from the first day on, Conor notices a mysterious girl (an outstanding Lucy Boynton). Eager to impress this mysterious girl, he makes up that he plays in a band. So Conor kinda has to start a band now.
'Sing Street' is another music movie written and directed by John Carney, who has had past successes with 'Begin Again' and foremost 'Once'. This time Carney revisits his childhood and it pay off big time. It's a sweet, joyful movie about so much more than impressing the girl. First of all, the music is great. With the help of his brother Brendan, played by Jack Reynor with a knock-out performance, Conor tries to find his identity as an artist and moves like a loose cannon from one source of inspiration to another. From Duran Duran, to David Bowie, to the Cure. The songs he composes together with his band, an ensemble of misfits, is catchy, fun, very eighties, with lyrics that shape his character and serve the plot. While the musical aspect of the movie makes the movie lots of fun, there are various powerful scenes that make 'Sing Street' one of the best movies of 2016. One scene where Brendan talks to Conor about their mother, enjoying the last rays of sun of the day seems like a small, simple scene but is so very powerful and plain devastating. It are those moments of great dialogue and symbolism (and not coincidentally most of the time with Jack Reynor in them) that make this movie grow on you even days or weeks after watching it.
This coming of age movie also has the typical romantic story line. The dork trying to get the hot girl is a concept used in many, maybe too many movies and has become a cliché. Here, you just don't care about the cliché because the story line is handled in such a sweet and tender way that you simply want all the clichés to play out as you expect them to, because you want to see them played out in this exact way. Walsh-Peelo and Boynton have an amazing chemistry, with great dialogue, sometimes with a philosophical character. He's only 14 years old, she's 17, but being 'happy sad' puts the oldest among us to think. The dialogue wasn't only strong between these two characters. Over the entire movie, so much is said with subtle choice of words. Nobody ever explicitly states how they feel or what happened in their lives. instead of plainly pointing out how a character feels, the dialogue guides our perception about the feelings and background of a character. This is the dialogue in its purest form. This subtle guiding of our perception is also achieved by the amazing performances of the actors.
Music, trying to find your identity as a person and artist, and love are three main recurring themes through the movie. But the movie reaches another zenith when you realize it's about more than all of that. It's about the relationship between two brothers in a broken family. The relationship between Conor and Brendan is perhaps the best part of the movie, again because of strong performances by both actors, and again because of the way it was handled by John Carney. Brendan's character will be relatable for every first born of the family.
Sing Street is a must see, extremely joyful, sweet and funny movie. Besides the fun, the movie hides many layers that will make the movie stick with you for a long time. Hopefully, this movie will receive the appreciation it deserves during the upcoming award season.