I was looking forward to seeing this film, because good quality choral singing has been part of my life for at last 4 decades. I've sung in choirs nearly all of my life, learning what a professional sense of choral singing is really all about in my Anglican secondary school chapel choir in the 1970s. Run on the rules of the Royal School of Church Music, this forms a professional framework for all major Anglican church choirs in 40 countries. And it is the framework that produces sounds like those of Kings and St John's College, Cambridge, as well as all the great Anglican cathedral choirs all over the English-speaking world (which undoubtedly also influences other denominations' music as well).
But I was as disappointed as I could possibly have been with this film that I thought would give some impression of the joy of being in a good choir! I suppose it depends on who the intended audience is. If it's for 12-year olds and you're just trying to tell a story of a kid who learns to control his anger against a bunch of generally pretty nasty other kids, as well as inexplicably annoying adults ... or if story development or any kind of accuracy are fairly unimportant, I guess it could pass muster. If you know and like music, the movie starts off quite nicely but gets progressively more annoying to the point of becoming excruciating. And if you have a thing about plausible plots and good writing showing research, forget it too.
Hollywood (i.e the American film industry) has been rightly seen as the world leader in film-making for nigh on a century. The number of classics the US has produced probably numbers more than the classics of every other country put together. But there is also a phrase "Only in Hollywood" that implies anything but quality and status as a classic. And unfortunately "Boychoir" fits well and truly into this latter category.
What is wrong with this film? It did have potential. Indeed, as I went back to double-check bits and pieces of the dialogue, storyline and various characters' development for this review (I had recorded it), I found almost-concealed factoids that only made some sense on that second viewing. But they required you to put 2 and 2 together at the right point and time. And considering that the first 2 was a subtraction from 5-3, and the final 2 was a piece of quantum physics, flashing into existence for only a brief moment and then gone forever, they didn't make it easy. And so much of this film was like that. I can only put that down to an almost complete lack of research on choirs and choral music, poor writing, indifferent direction and pretty abysmal editing.
You can understand why lead boy character Stet (Garrett Wareling) has anger issues with such a neglectful family background, but why is conductor Carvelle (Dustin Hoffman) such an irrationally volatile (bordering on nasty) character? We only - finally - get a reason for this in the denouement before the big finale. And by then it's really too late and it seems totally artificial, because nothing like this was hinted at up to this point. Then it came and went in 10 seconds, and that was supposed to explain everything. Yet it was so easy to miss. I'm pretty attentive, but I didn't make the connections needed to understand its significance until that detailed second viewing. On first viewing most of the audience would have been like me then, going "Huh?" (And let's not even mention his "conducting' - not only completely eccentric, but almost always totally out of time too.)
And the way the staff of this "renowned boychoir school" were depicted was as possibly the most unprofessional group of "educational professionals" imaginable. With the exception of Kevin McHale's character, they play favourites, and Eddie Izzard's character commits what (as an educational professional myself) I would consider a sackable offence by covering up the faked illness of his treble favourite, the favourite's sneaking out of school and unauthorized travel to another city, as well as a terribly contrived truly nasty plot by this favourite against the other lead treble contender Stet, and then his teacher's (later) knowledge and cover-up of all of this. And what about Stet's natural father? Who inexplicably reverses the irresponsibility of 12-13 years' neglect toward his inconveniently born-out-of-wedlock son? He suddenly has a change of heart - the catalyst for which is apparently two involuntarily-attended performances (the latter momentary only), and his son singing a top D.
Yah, if that doesn't make sense to you, dear reader, it made even less to me, and I watched the film. Twice.
And we can't ignore that top D, because it's the turning point for so many things. For a school that allegedly reveres music - and it seems that the key consideration is showing that they're better than the Vienna Boys' Choir (no such luck!) - they seem to be capable of the most unspeakable offences against musical integrity. Something that rang as just so unbelievably phony for me (and I see also for many other reviewers here), that from that point on I just watched events in gaping disbelief.
My horror really started at the line delivered by Eddie Izzard's deputy choirmaster when the news comes that the choir will perform "Messiah", but "because there is no solo part" (there are in fact extensive soprano, alto, tenor and base solos forming well over half of the two hour++ work), "they would have to write a descant for the 'Alleluia Chorus' ", which is all the "Messiah" turns out to be in this movie. The fact that the credits misspell the famous Hallelujah Chorus, along with Handel's first name being unaccountably credited in the French version of Georges (don't ask, I'm assuming their sample CD was made in France) was representative of basically everything.
I have performed my bucket list of the great choral works through 2-3 decades singing in major choirs with symphony orchestras. That includes Handel's "Messiah" with four different choirs in well over a score of different performances. Well, if there could be any thought more sacrilegious to a music professional than rewriting the "Hallelujah" Chorus - perhaps the greatest choral chorus of all time (at least the best known), and which is pretty well perfect as it is - I don't know what it could be. But these "professional choir teachers" did, and they wrote a truly awful descant which did reach a high D completely illogical to the musical flow of either descant or the standard score of the piece. It was unbelievably bad, and stood out as such like a sore dinosaur's paw. ("Thumb" is really far too restrained a term.)
I can't believe it's an American thing. For instance I have certainly seen the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, outside the US probably the best-known professional American choir, do the usual highly professional performance - and no descant or high D there!
As I said previously, only in Hollywood.
If you're 12 or under in reality or spirit, OK. You just might like this.
But, if you love music and you love choirs, avoid it! It'll only upset you.
