A feel-good film, I must say

Rating: 9/10 (30 December 2016)

The film is written and directed by Irish filmmaker John Carney (who's written and directed, as well as composed, films that I hadn't seen nor heard of prior hand, and for obvious reasons) and is set in the 1980s, as tells the story of a teenager in Dublin named Conor who is sent to a Christian school by his folks. He does not fit in, of course, but that is up until he meets a boy named Darren who eventually becomes his ally. He then meets a young-adult lady named Raphina, whom he immediately falls for. On top of that, both he and Darren go to a house to meet Eamon who has an entire collection of instruments. All three of them then start a band, bringing along three more guys, with Darren as the manager.
I will say that the cast do quite well with the material they're given: Ferdia Walsh-Peelo does a fair job as Conor (also known as Cosmo), Lucy Boynton is outstanding as the female lead, Raphina, and Jack Reynor who is spectacular as Conor's brother, Brendan. The cast also includes well-known, such as Aidan Gillen (whom you may recognize as Little-Finger from Game of Thrones) as the father and singer, Maria Doyle Kennedy as the mother.
My only gripes with the film are that the supporting characters don't really stand out as much as they should have. And the dialogue was very hard for me to understand at times, so much that I had to turn on subtitles for the most part. But other than that, I highly enjoyed everything else about this film.