Cecil says: The film opens with a bunch of soldiers in an armoured vehicle somewhere in the Middle East. One of them begins to sing and is joined by the rest of them before you know it. Same things troops have done, and sailors before them, for centuries...
It was only when the two main characters are back home in
Edinburgh, and begin singing again – this time with rather well-choreographed
steps down the Leith streets – that it dawned on me: Sunshine on Leith is a musical.
Now, this is the second musical I’ve seen recently without
knowing it in advance (Rock of Ages caught
me out too), and I’m not a big fan of the genre. But Sunshine on Leith was a lot of fun, the singing was really rather
good (well, it is all based on The
Proclaimers’ music, so what do you expect?), and by the final scene, with
the mass flash-mob in central Edinburgh, I felt like getting up and shaking my
stuff with the rest of them.
I don’t know anything about film-making, so I’ve no idea how
you go about transposing a stage play to the big screen, but it didn’t feel as
if the producers of this movie did much transposing. Apart from the (very
frequent) camera panning over Edinburgh skylines (so frequent in fact that you
feel as if the Edinburgh Tourist Board had a hand in the final cut), virtually
every scene felt as if it had been taken straight from the stage.
By half way through, I was whispering to Bea every few
minutes, ‘I can feel a song coming up’, and sure enough one of the main
characters would burst into song, usually backed by the amassed crowd of
onlookers in the pub, on the steps, in the museum, wherever you liked,
basically.
Plot-wise, this was a nice story about two young soldiers
getting out of the army after a touch tour of duty in Afghanistan (I think),
and readapting to home life; it’s about their relationships, their parents,
about dreams and wavering views of where life is taking us.
If that sounds a bit deep, I’ve pitched it wrong. This is a
fun film, which I’m sure most of us can relate to on one level or other. There
were a few weak moments in the dialogue and the storyline, but the overall feel
was positive, so who cares?
I don’t suppose you’ll see such glowing reviews from the
Glasgow side of Scotland. But I’ll let Bea elaborate on that...
***.5
Bea says:
The musical aspect of Sunshine on Leith caught me by surprise too - although I was familiar with The Proclaimer's album of the same name, and had read some blurb on the film, so knew it was about two soldiers returning from Afghanistan, and that it was set to The Proclaimers music. "Set to" made me think that The Proclaimers would be somewhere in the background, so I wasn't expecting people to sing them, but did enjoy it.
There were some really good performers and performances here - Jane Horrocks as Jean and Peter Mullen as Rab particularly, and the stage play feel means the dialogue feels stronger than it otherwise might. There are some slight plot lapses in my view - Rab's infidelity is rather quickly got over by Jean, considering how badly she initially reacted, at a point in the film where suddenly all the difficulties experienced by everyone were being rather quickly got over - true 1950s musical style I guess! The Proclaimers music and lyrics is well used to hang the story together - I've seen a few of these kinds of musicals and often this is not the case!
Edinburgh stars as itself and very nearly steals the show; the rather dismissive references to Glasgow are notable by those (like me) who have a soft spot for Scotland's other big city..
Most touching moment? The lyrics of Letter from America demonstrating how similar life is in some ways to a hundred or more years ago when people left Scotland for work, and for a new and hopefully better life.
A lovely feel-good film for a dull afternoon; a bit twee in its wrapping up of all the plotlines but with a little bit of poignancy to ensure it isn't forgettable.
***.5
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