Rating: B+
Summing it up in one sentence, Sing Street follows the story of Cosmo, a teenager living in Dublin in the ‘80s, who is motivated to start a band in the hopes of impressing a girl named Raphina.
Yes, there are songs in this movie and they’re pretty good, so it’s basically like an episode of Glee but not shit. I wouldn’t really define it as a musical, but all of the set pieces where the band is playing music give opportunities to show the characters complete awkward teenage vibe of ‘trying to look cool but really having no idea what they’re doing’. Cosmo really comes into his own with the guidance of his brother, Brendan (played by Jack Reynor who is super hot, just putting it out there). Brendan gives him homework of listening to different records and showing him music videos. Depicted as a stereotypically drop kick character who just smokes weed all day, pure joy for him does come from seeing his brother be happy and passionate.
The costumes were great, especially as the band goes through numerous different genre iterations, and seeing them go through the visual aesthetic is really funny, especially when Cosmo attempts to dye his fringe blonde. In one particularly memorable scene, Cosmo wears makeup to school and the super duper strict Catholic headmaster is like nahhhhh that’s shit and scrubs his face with soap (it’s ruthless and hard to watch).
While this was a fun film to see and there were plenty of parts I laughed really hard at, a number of elements fell flat near the end and I would have loved to see a lot more character development of the other band members and other supporting cast. Similarly, Raphina herself deserves a little more attention as she sort of ends up as a typical manic pixie dream girl, instead of a fully fleshed out lead character.
Overall, Sing Street is a largely inoffensive watch; best suited for lazy weekend entertainment purposes.