It’s 1985 in Dublin, Ireland. For fifteen-year-old Conor Lawlor, life is falling apart at the seams. The country is in the midst of a recession. Unemployment is rampant, prompting many young people to flee across the sea to England in search of work. Conor’s parents are separating, and their constant shouting matches reverberate through the Lawlor household. Conor’s elder brother, Brendan, has dropped out of college and spends his days smoking hash. On top of all that, Conor has entered a new school, where he finds himself bullied by students and the principal alike. The lad’s future looks incredibly bleak. But then he meets a girl.
Raphina is very cool. She’s an aspiring model, a year older than Conor, and way out of his league. Nevertheless, Conor takes a risk and strikes up a conversation with her, inviting her to star in a music video that his band is making. There’s a catch, though: he doesn’t have a band. He’s never even written a song. But Raphina accepts the invitation, and that’s a cause worth starting a band for. There’s a lad at school named Darren who knows some other lads that can hold a tune. Gradually, a ragtag group of talented misfits is formed, dubbing themselves “Sing Street.” As they begin writing lyrics, composing melodies, and filming music videos, Conor starts to wonder if his reckless plan to win Raphina’s heart might actually work, and if the future might be brighter than he’d allowed himself to believe.
Do you remember what it felt like to be a teenager? For many of us, high school was a time marked by both hardship and hope. My teenage years were filled with emotional turmoil, loneliness, and insecurities. They were packed with attempts to impress others and, in doing so, to prove to myself and to them that I mattered. In many ways, they were years of deep darkness. However, those same years were also brimming with promise. It was a time when anything seemed possible, when the future was a bright horizon that seemed close enough to touch. Sing Street is a story that gets teenagers right, and it plunged me back into that mournful, magical time (many years ago for some, not so long ago for me). I enjoyed the moviethe first time I saw it. After re-watching it with others, I realized that it’s one of my all-time favorite stories. Alternately grim and jubilant, heartbreaking and hope-filled, it’s a deeply resonant story about the struggles of growing up, the adventure of falling in love, and the mysterious power of music.
One of Sing Street‘s many strengths is its well-written characters. Ferdia Walsh-Peelo shines as Conor, whose earnest, clumsy attempts at songwriting and romance are both touching and hilarious. Lucy Boynton is perfectly cast as Raphina, capable of conveying an uber-cool exterior with a well of deep emotion underneath. Jack Reynor is also great as Conor’s older brother, Brendan. A druggie and a dropout, he lives vicariously by giving his little brother sage advice on rock-and-roll, distracting himself from the failures that haunt him. His relationship with Conor is a strained one. However, the way that it develops is honest and ultimately deeply moving. Director John Carney made a bold move by casting unknown musicians rather than experienced actors as the members of the Sing Street band. It’s a move that pays off, both in the music that the kids create and the goofy, unpretentious ways that they interact with each other.
Then there are the songs. John Carney excels at making musicals rooted in realism (like Once, another great film about a band in Ireland). The songs occur in settings and circumstances that feel natural – taping recordings in someone’s living room, plunking out parts on a park bench, jamming at an end-of-year school disco. The members of Sing Street immerse themselves in the music of the 80’s. As they work to figure out who they are, their outfits and hairstyles change to match the tunes that they’re listening to. The songs that they create together are both tributes to the styles of the decade and fantastic tunes in their own right.
Sing Street has insightful things to say about the power of music and storytelling to affect our lives. For Conor, rock-and-roll is an escape – a way out of a day-to-day existence that is frequently brutal. However, over time, it also becomes an avenue toward community. There’s joy in discovering that the things that wake up your heart resonate with other people’s hearts too. There’s comfort in witnessing someone else affirm the hurts that you tend to hide. And there’s magic in hearing someone add a melody to your lyrics – a tune that you would never have thought of, but which feels like it was meant to be. As someone who has experienced these kinds of creative community, I was moved by the bonds that the kids in Sing Street form. The songs that Conor writes enable him to process the hardships that he’s facing and to glean meaning from them. At one point in the film, heartbroken and alone, he turns instinctively to his guitar, and finds solace in giving artistic shape to his sorrow. Sing Street filled me with gratitude for the simple gift of song, which I so often take for granted. What a gift! How amazing is it that the Bible, through which God reveals himself to us, is chock-full of songs – songs of praise and worship, songs about the beauty of the world, songs of lament, and even songs of romance? What a bewilderingly beautiful privilege it is to make music together!
There is much in Sing Street that is difficult to watch. If your conscience is unsettled by heavy profanity, scenes of bullying, and references to drug abuse, I wouldn’t recommend the movie to you. The lives of Conor, his family members, and his friends are difficult and deeply broken. The choices that they make are sometimes messy. Near the middle of the film, Raphina tells Conor that he needs to learn to be “happy-sad” – to come to terms with the sorrow that he feels rather than fleeing from it. It’s a great picture of joy, which goes beyond mere happiness and persists in the midst of suffering. It’s the kind of truth that we see in the Biblical psalms of lament, where songwriters groan and question and plead with God to change things, and then still choose to believe that God is good, that the horizon of the future bends toward redemption, even if it doesn’t look like it. The way that the movie ends captures this truth beautifully.
Sing Street is a film for those who know what it feels like to ache for redemption. It’s a movie for those who recognize that their world is falling apart at the seams and who yearn for a new start. It’s a story for misfits and dreamers who long to set sail for a country across the sea – a place where light and hope dwell. In its music, I can hear the echoes of that country. I hope that you can hear them too.
Words for Wayfarers 