sydneybell
First off, I'm not a fan of musicals so my lack of love for this movie can and should be taken with a grain of salt. However, I am a big fan of The Proclaimers and having visited Edinburgh twice in the last couple of years, thought I would enjoy the scenery (which I did).Here's the thing. In my experience of The Proclaimers, they (like the good Celts they are) sing about three things: Love&Sex / God / Politics, This movie only shines the light on one, which is why I think I found a movie inspired and infused with their music, disappointing.Case in point, the song Cap in Hand does not find it's way into this movie - that's all you really need to know.Some heartwarming scenes - and Edinburgh is stunning and beautifully shot, but that's about it.
magnuslhad
Sunshine on Leith attempts to do with the music of The Proclaimers what Magnolia did with Aimee Mann songs, namely fashion a narrative that interweaves the various tales hinted at in the songs lyrics. The story lines themselves are pure family melodrama, and like the renditions of the songs, some work better than others. Peter Mullan brings that gravelly majesty of his to the show, a credible thread of proletariat credentials in a film that largely strips the working-class despair and Scottish nationalist politics from The Proclaimers lyrics (the characters who sing of Linwood and Bathgate no more most likely have never heard of these places ever). His marriage crisis is genuinely fraught, and when his wife discovers his secret, precisely at the worst of times, there is a wordless look that passes between husband and wife that cuts the foundations of 25 years. In a film that is unabashedly going after froth and fun most of the time, this is a small, startling cinematic moment. The film is a love letter to The Proclaimers and to Edinburgh, and as such will satisfy audiences who crave such depictions. It is not normally my cup of tea, but I found myself rooting for George MacKay's Davy to do the right thing, and hoping Jane Horrock's Jean would find a way to forgive. As for the songs, 500 Miles gets a fittingly stagey production, but I can't help but feel the two soldiers, or the father and son, in the stands at Easter Road, belting out Sunshine on Leith with the Hibs support, would have been a powerfully poignant moment. A bit of a missed opportunity there.
david-meldrum
Sometimes being predictable can be a good thing. My wife and I were in celebratory mood having received some long-awaited good news. We believe in marking the good things in life, so we decided on a movie (not exactly unusual for us, I guess) and a bite to eat after. So off we headed to Cape Town's finest cinema, one of the very few independents left in the country, for Sunshine On Leith; a British film finally on a limited South African release, several months after it arrived in British cinema. It's a musical. Based on a stage show; which in turn was based around the songbook of Scottish pop duo The Proclaimers. The musical is itself a family drama/love story set around the return of two soldiers from service in Afghanistan; it is, of course, set in a beautifully shot Edinburgh, as much attention given to obscure back-alleys as it is to sweeping skylines. The film's helped by some fine casting - Peter Mullan and Jane Horrocks adding heavyweight talent to proceedings as the parents; the rest of the cast can all sing more than well enough, and look as comfortable acting as they are singing. It helps, of course, that the songs are near perfect of their type, and with their folk inflected tone fit naturally into a storytelling structure. The context some songs end up with may be obvious a mile off, but no less the worse for it - what you're imagining right now about Letter From America, for instance, is almost certainly right on the money.Ultimately insubstantial as it is, the film is an addictive and life-affirming smile. I'm sure there are people who won't enjoy it, and this may be my celebratory mood talking, but I find it hard to imagine how you end up in such a place with this film. The cast and director give themselves so entirely to the project that you're swept-along on a tide of good feeling and well-wishing. It's a joy, from start to finish.
Raven-1969
"Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a death like slumber, must always create a sunshine," wrote Hawthorne "filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outside world." So it is that the habitually dark skies of Scotland open to the sun. A trio of diverse highlander couples, both experienced and not, struggle to deal with fears and passions stirred up by past loves, the urge to see the world before settling down, war and questions about whether we ever truly know someone. Singing and dancing to the music of the Proclaimers aids in working these questions out. The astonishing and effervescent, even if somewhat alarming, scenes of uptight and introverted Scotlanders warbling and writhing in the uncommon sunlight would move even Angela Merkel to spontaneous joy. Chemistry is lacking in the younger couples, yet despite this the film is touching and radiant. Seen at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.
AD
