Surprise on Leith

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

29 September

Yesterday's Surprise Film 1, which Tony Jones had said was a world premiere, turned out to be Sunshine on Leith (2013), the musical with songs of The Proclaimers.

No one expects great depth from musicals, I guess, but the way that the film started, with one voice in a personnel carrier, then a voice in harmony, from two young soldiers who proved to be friends and one of whom was the boyfriend of the other's sister, was evocative - understated, unexpected, it set the tone for the whole film. Many a musical weaves its course around the songs, as Ben Elton might agree, and it is not unusual that their lyrics drive the story, but these, taken from a stage version, seemed a good fit.

In Screen 2 at Festival Central, the quality of the sound was excellent, such that the clarity was there whether it was Jane Horrocks singing, or Peter Mullan, whose voice I quite liked. Mainly charting the ups and downs of the relationships between those two as a couple, and between the existing couple with their daughter, and between her friend and their son, as set up on a blind date. Strain causes travel for one couple when they split up, and the past catches up nastily until differences can be reconciled.

In a blaze of onlookers willing the remaining pair not to be stubborn and back into each other's arms, and then symbolically re-enacting the 500-miles song with a ranks of them moving in formation, the situations and the music that establishes them culminate, having built throughout the film, whether mocking up a proposal and marriage ceremony in the pub, or bemoaning the fate of Mary, Queen of Scots, as a type of female ambassador in one of Edinburgh's galleries.

I am no great fan of musicals, by and large, but this one did it for me : it felt right, it cheered without being sentimental, and it faced up to some of the things that come between those whom we love and us.


If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)