Okay, indulge this old fogie a moment of nostalgia - we all thought John Cusack holding that damn boombox over his head, blaring Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” outside of Ione Skye’s window in Say Anything… was so damn cool. What better way for a guy of that age to let a girl with whom he’s incredibly smitten know that, despite not even knowing who he really is himself, he’s sure she’d be incredibly into him if she just gave him a chance.
Most of us poor males have been there, or wish we had been: you’re young and you think the only way to get the attention of The Girl is to impress them with some talent or another, assuming you even have one. Wouldn’t it be super if you could start a band? Yeah, that would do it! Problem is, your band would probably suck, cover songs don’t really impress girls, and nobody would show up for your gigs (assuming you could get any), but if you can just get her to see you play, just once, it would all be worth it. Dream on, you poor adolescent schmuck...
Cut to the present - today’s youth may have been given their own version of John Cusack, and even though this one may be a bit more low-key than old Lloyd Dobler was, I believe 15-year old Conor Lawlor’s (newcomer Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) solution in Sing Street may be a bit ballsier. I mean, why stand there blasting someone else’s love song at The Girl when you can write a new one? Conor does just that when he spots Raphina (a luminous Lucy Boynton), deciding the instant he sees her that he’ll impress her with the band he hasn’t even formed yet, fully confident the details will work themselves out.
This is the predicament in which Conor finds himself at the beginning of the latest film from writer/director John Carney (Once, Begin Again), a filmmaker who seems to be specializing in musical fables. We first see Conor in his bedroom, plucking on his guitar as his parents argue outside, turning their shouts into jokey song lyrics. It’s 1985 in Dublin, and Conor’s life is about to fall apart; not only are Mom and Dad on the verge of divorce, but hard economic times also force them to move Conor to a different, more hardscrabble (and free) school. He has no friends (the campus bully even threatens him with a slingshot on the first day), no real prospects, and the cruel headmaster’s top priority seems to be the dress code.
Then he spots the mys-terious Raphina standing outside the schoolyard. All Conor knows about her is that she’s an aspiring model with an older boyfriend, but somehow, he has enough confidence to get her number under the pretense of having her appear in a music video for a band that doesn’t even exist yet. With the assistance of 14-year old self-proclaimed “manager” Darren (Ben Carolan), Conor sets to it, rounding up a group of kindred spirits with an ease that strains believability. Sure, it’s total fantasy, but Carney executes this scenario, along with so many others throughout the movie, with such spirit and earnestness that one can’t help but be taken in by it.
Through a series of changing outfits and musical influences, the film charts Conor’s musical and personal growth, his compli-cated relationship with Raphina, and how he tries to keep an even keel kept on the home front. In the absence of any meaningful parental guidance – his parents are peripheral figures in the story – his stoner older brother Brennan (Jack Reynor) provides musical education and some Miyagi-like wisdom (of a sort), and proves much more aware than his slacker appearance would suggest with gems like, “No woman can truly love a man who loves Phil Collins.” Based on Carney’s own experiences as a boy in Dublin, the screenplay digs deeper than the usual universal love story to comment on Irish life in 1985 and sets it to a soundtrack that hits all the right notes for those with fond memories of The Cure, Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello. 
The songs scattered about the soundtrack, many of which were written especially for the film, feel totally at home in the mid-80s time-frame (I dare you to hear the band’s first composition early in the film and not hear Duran Duran’s “Girls on Film” in the back of your head). Carney himself co-wrote all the new compositions with veteran composer Gary Clark, and these tunes add so much to the old-fashioned and optimistic vibe that just exudes from the screen that I can’t imagine the movie working without them.
It’s the kids on screen that make the movie, though. Sing Street wonderfully communicates the exuber-ance and enthusiasm of its young cast, most of whom are non-actors, and the natural-ness of all their performances is an absolute wonder. The chemistry that Walsh-Peelo and Boyton share would make the movie watchable on its own, but Mark McKenna’s performance as Conor’s songwriting partner Eamon matches theirs, and all of the youths in the band, even with smaller roles, deliver incredibly believable performances.
This movie actually brought some of that awful teen angst so many of us guys felt during those years of Swatch watches and Trapper Keepers crashing back to mind, yet it still made me smile and remember those years with fondness. In my recent review of The Edge of Seventeen, I said that film was one which John Hughes would wish he’d have made were he still alive. Sing Street could also fit that bill.
Cue Lloyd Dobler and that boombox now.
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