Diagonaldi Very well executed

Konterr Brilliant and touching

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

KissEnglishPasto November 20, 2016…My Post date for this Review: Currently, "SONG" has less than 4,000 IMDb votes and only 25 posted Reviews! Considering its outstanding International cast, its rich and superb music and vocals, the universality of its heartwarming message and its 2014 release date, it's doubtful you will find such paltry stats for any other movie with such impressive characteristics. After my viewing last night, I would have guessed an IMDb rating of 7.3 or 7.4, but it stands at only 6.7! Had NEVER heard any mention, anywhere, neither of its present, re-worked title, or of "BOYCHOIR", the original release title. My motivation for adding it to my collection was, indeed, a very personal one. My wife has formed part of our local church choir for the past 2 years and it was obvious that the subject would interest her. Although certainly not a Classic, we both enjoyed it immensely. My rating: 8*s and my wife's is 9! SONG has definite elements that would appeal, most certainly, to large numbers of specific groups, each of which will be pointed out as we move forward. 11 year old lead character, Stet, is a survivor. His existence is pretty much rudderless, as he is being raised solely by his alcoholic Mom, who is a poster child for the antithesis of helicopter parenting! Less than 10 minutes into "SONG" Stet's world implodes. (Considering it happens so close to the very beginning, it can't possibly be considered a SPOILER, right?) Well, in one take, in seconds we can grasp that Stet has been orphaned as a result of an apparent DUI crash where his Mom's car is totaled and the ill-fated lifeless and mangled remains of Mom are hanging upside down in the twisted wreckage. All of this, somewhat in the distance, so as to not really be in-your-face!Stet's dad is one of those "legally responsible" types, who always makes his monthly child support payments on time, but who eschews any and all contact with his "biological" son. Evidently, contacting him is something the school does as a no other option obligation. Well, enough of spoon feeding you plot details. The rest of my review is going to be done in broad strokes!More often than not, this genre tends to be over the top, leaning hard on viewers to milk every poignant moment to the very fullest. SONG most definitely avoided this common pitfall. As events unfold, the film takes care to let each and every arising development pretty much speak for itself. This, for me, is one of SONG's most admirable aspects. Unfortunately, there are, I think, some audience segments who are really addicted to this type of on screen presentation and just might have been rather disappointed by the lack of it here.SONG should appeal to most of you who enjoy Classical music and/or traditional choral activity. For People looking for educationally themed family movies, I'm certain you will find SONG to be a truly shining example. There are few films that provide a better example of just how transformational passion for an activity can be in a young person's life!8*....ENJOY! / DISFRUTELA! Any comments, questions or observations, in English o en Español, are most welcome!....

Paul Emmons Anyone attending a graduation ceremony at the American Boychoir School, as I did a few hours before seeing this film in Princeton, would be impressed with its tremendous and infectious school spirit. It is a joyous group of young people who uphold one another and love being together. Their enthusiasm has been buoyed up, and deservedly so, by the choir's glowing work in this film. As others have already noted, the singing is glorious, and one hopes is an audience's most lasting takeaway.One's heart goes out to Stet, at first sight perhaps not the kind of boy one would expect to be smitten to the core within a moment of hearing such music. But he was! Given a chance to join, he is afraid to try at first, because failure and rejection would hurt so much. Time and again, it was the exquisite beauty of what he heard around him that drove him on, even when it seemed out of reach.Aside from that-- I very much wanted to love this movie more than I'm ultimately able to do. Especially given its every suggestion that it is a portrayal of life in the American Boychoir School (or any choral foundation for that matter), we must bear in mind, IT IS FICTION! For according to the movie, this is a grim life in a hostile place, in which a boy might find no friends, no teamwork, and even a faculty member or two implacably opposed to his very presence. We see only merciless competition and rivalry, sometimes descending to unscrupulous malice for which the guilty peer gets only a slap on the wrist. This is not the stuff of which a great ensemble, as the American Boychoir clearly is, can be made. Alas, in this respect I fear that the scriptwriter and director have done a disservice to the art and institution that they meant to promote.This is a serious matter at a time when plenty of choir school graduates go on to the most prestigious high schools in the country, and plenty of parents dream of exactly this outcome from the moment their child is born. To a large extent, it is the immersion in great music that does this. Yet the dots don't get connected: there is a shortage of applicants to choir schools, among other excellent boarding schools for children of this age, both here and abroad. Interested families understandably want to be assured that they will find a supportive, nurturing atmosphere in which every pupil is almost guaranteed to flourish happily. This is what such schools provide, as their students and alumni enthusiastically report. Reading music is patiently taught, not a prerequisite for admission. But you'd never guess it from the film.If others feel that this single reservation I have expressed is too harsh, nothing would please me more. Boy goes to choir school and becomes a success. "Predictable", people say, as if this were a criticism. But oh how right they are.

shishudas I happen to actually have an 11 year old son at a boarding choir school, so I'm a little biased. But I liked the story and, of course, the singing. Thank goodness actual schools have a little less drama, and the boys are a lot nicer to each other. But the uniqueness of the experience is well conveyed, and the angelic beauty of their voices. My son's choir sings the Handel's Messiah every year, and it is indeed spectacular! This movie has no sex, no swearing, and very little violence, which is a nice change of pace. The story was inspiring, and although it's not going to win any Oscars, it was fun to watch something so close to home.

velijn But it isn't, not in this movie. Whatever the reviewers thought about the settings, the actors, it will always be a personal opinion, which is fine by me. No matter that almost every adult character phones in his or her part, or that the script is packed with the usual clichés - it's "Oliver" all over again, and Garett Wareing even looks like Mark Lester - if the main ingredient is good we'll sit through the rest. But it isn't good, not by a long note. It is the music itself. And its part in the movie and with the reviewers. Were there truly "angelic voices" to hear, as one reviewer noted? Did we hear the same "Hallelujah", with the same godawful "additions"? And what about the D-high nonsense, when C-6 is the highest in all (boy) soprano scores? Never mind the improbable settings; it is truly a miracle that that our boy hero succeeds in learning all the intricate notations and harmonies in a jiffy where most choristers need years of practice. We may forgive August Rush (from the movie of that name) to spring up from street urchin to master composer and conductor in less time than it takes to turn a page in the score or script, but that movie was set up as a fairy tale, so we don't mind that very much. But this movie did try to put in a bit of reality of a chorister-to-be, of a choir school, of childish competition (by the adults), of the art of learning music, of singing. The two best scenes in it are just glimpses of what have could have been. It's at the beginning, when (in an all too brief shot) the boys learn about the intricacies of scales and harmonies in class, and the moment when Hoffman explains the majestic beauty of Tallis' "Spem in alium", literally surrounded by the glory of that music. But these grace notes are held not long enough to justify the butchering of Händel's Hallelujah, including the "cute" boy solo. What is the matter? Can't we just enjoy music, choral music, on its own? Must we disnify every work of art to make it palatable for the greatest possible range of spectators? Must we go to yet another stale variation of the "from rags to riches" syndrome? Of childish pranks that range every false note on the scale of probability? The choir school tradition in the US maybe somewhat lacking in tradition (it's hard to come up against a thousand year old history of British cathedral choirs), but not in talent, witnessing the many brilliant choir performances all over the country. But not in this movie. It will be a fine Christmas tearjerker, and Garrett Wareing is stealing almost all the scenes, and justly so. But the film is certainly not the high note we've come to expect from the maker of "The Red Violin" or "Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould".If you're genuinely interested in the true history of chorister schools, try to get you hand on DVD documentaries over this great tradition - the Salisbury Cathedral Choir and King's College Choir come to mind. If you want a musical tearjerker, try "August Rush", an improbable story but a true glimpse in what music can do to you, or "Shine". If none of all that matters, well go ahead and watch "Boychoir". You've been warned.