Drive it like you stole it.

Rating: 8/10 (7 April 2018)

I had forgotten how utterly full of joy and hope Sing Street is, about a teenager growing up in 80s working class Dublin who refuses to simply lie down and accept the cards that have been dealt to him. That this revelatory journey begins with a casual fib to try and impress a pretty girl is apt; Cosmo falls into the juvenile trap of pretending to be someone else for another, but we marvel as he climbs out of that trap and comes of age in the process.
The film has touches of the usual kitchen-sink realism, but avoids the pitfalls of completely swooping down to that gloomy level. Cosmo finds his own solace, slamming the door on his parent's screaming and returning to strumming his acoustic guitar. They're so poor he can't even afford a new pair of black school shoes, but sports winged lashes and rebellious streaks in his hair. Editors Andrew Marcus and Julian Ulrichs make heartbreak and highlights out of the way he retreats into musical daydream, alternating close-ups of Conor's twitching face and an unmoving set of doors before seamlessly shifting into a full blown dream sequence.
That 'dress rehearsal' of their smash hit "Drive It Like You Stole It" speaks to Sing Street at its best: loud, brash, and bold, with songs that serenade a life at its breaking point. The scene features an eye-popping colour scheme, sitcom-esque high key lighting, and a wacky ensemble of characters emerging from the crowd in even wackier costumes. If only life were like this. But the boys and their band make their own magic, evolving from a rag-tag bunch in a makeshift setup next to a back alley dumpster. Their music is their bond and their escape; for Cosmo an avenue to splatter his heartache onto notation (even as it is too late for his college-dropout older brother, who reveals his own obscured failings in a startling monologue), for schoolyard bully Barry a chance to escape his abusive, dead-end household.
Cosmo sets his heart on Lucy Boynton's Raphina, a model with an elven elegance about her, and a wardrobe that sees her walk straight off a magazine cover. The relationship is so unbalanced it's almost unfair; Cosmo has already fallen in love before their first conversation, while Raphina's juggling another pretty boy - no, man - on the side. In a classic move, he projects a whole range of fantasies and ideals onto the model, making her the centre of his attention and first music video. Yet John Carney unravels this fairy tale with such finesse, stripping away the mystique from a girl who is in reality only a year older than Conor, and a lot less worldlier than he really thinks. Only then can they be true to themselves, and then each other.
I'm still not as captivated by the ending as I was by the finale of Carney's 2007 masterpiece Once, which seemed to stick truer to the characters. Sometimes romance and real life are at odds with each other, and it takes strength to admit it. What Cosmo and Raphina set off to achieve isn't entirely implausible, but it's brave, far braver than anything else they have aspired to in their short lives (Carney shoots it almost like the prom sequence, the boundary between fantasy and reality hazy). But they're futurists, after all. Nostalgia and cover bands are a thing of the past, for those still sulking around in Dublin. Their time is now. Grab the wheel and own it.