Member review

A leap back to troubled 1980s Dublin where Sing Street invites us into the life of fourteen-year-old Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo). The teenager’s family fortunes have taken a plunge and Conor finds himself forced to move from his safe, calm, private school to a crazy all-boys public school. The wrath of his cruel new head teacher and the school’s bullies become his new daily challenges, until he bumps into secretive and mysterious, Raphina (Lucy Boynton) outside the school gate. In a bid to impress her he asks her to be a part of his band’s music video. Only one problem - he hasn’t got a band!

He re invents himself and ‘Cosmo’ forms a band with his new found quirky friends. They spend their time writing new songs and filming music videos, even though they have no idea what they’re doing. With the famous sounds of Duran Duran and The Cure in their heads the teens create their own original style of music which expresses their complicated struggle with life.

The Irish director, John Carney is no stranger to directing music films however Sing Street is influenced by his personal experiences growing up in Dublin in the ’80s. I believe that he is trying to express that, whatever our situation, we must always find happiness in sadness and that music is a way for us to do that.

“That’s what love is Cosmo: happy-sad”

I enjoyed watching this film, mainly because I’m obsessed with 70s and 80s music so it was a joy to hear great hits from the likes of The Clash, A-Ha, The Cure and The Jam in a recently released movie. I was also impressed with the band’s costumes which brought the colour, mood and wild hair of the 80s music scene to life perfectly. I thought the final scene was rather odd and unnecessarily dramatic – the way it happened rather unrealistic.

I would recommend this film to teenagers ... or indeed to anyone who enjoys ‘80s music. A film to enjoy with your parents if they were ‘80s groovers maybe! Sing Street will have you and them singing all – day!