The film has slightly aged

Rating: Null/10 (6 October 2011)

At the time when it came out it was the story not so far away of the attempt to import soul music into Ireland and make Ireland the Soul of Europe, I mean the Negro of Europe singing soul music to the proletarians. Today it has aged and it has become some kind of a rather nostalgic recollection of what things were back then when Ireland was not yet in anyway the Celtic Tiger it has become in the meantime.
But the film has kept some depth about life and young people. For one young people, and in this case the main front musicians and vocalists, cannot succeed if they do not find some older more experienced people to help them find a vision, a path, an inspiration that makes them encounter the superior layers of their souls.
The second lesson is that no one can go anywhere if they don't have a clear vision of what they want to do and where they want to go. They may be confused, not clear enough, follow the wrong star and change stars and directions several times before finding they way, but if they are inspired along the way they will find the path that leads to their realizing the deepest desires of theirs.
But the film is sad because in the end it is the story of a failure since the group that is being built meets with success and as soon as they meet with that local success they become aggressive, violent to one another as if each one of them wanted to be the main star, as if the Milky Way only had one star. It is even painful to see how they come close to something and then reject it for plain selfish reasons.
The last words of the older trumpet player do not make up for that failure? Each one of them has been lifted to a higher level of consciousness and will go on looking for a way to realize that expectation of theirs? That might be true for one, or two out of the whole lot but the others only step back into banal humdrum routine because they have learned very little from the experience that will remain for them a sorry experiment.