SUNSHINE ON LEITH

Stars: Peter Mullan, Antonia Thomas, Freya Mavor, Jane Horrocks, George MacKay, Kevin Guthrie, Jason Flemyng and Emily-Jane Boyle.
Writer: Stephen Greenhorn.
Director: Dexter Fletcher.

Reviewed at the Gold Coast Film Festival, Sunday April 5.

Rating: 3.5/5

Given his first two featuress deal with the emotional intricacies of working class family life, one might assume that director Dexter Fletcher feels bound by particular themes. Surely the veteran character actor accumulated a vast storytelling toolbox after four decades of guidance under the likes of David Lynch (The Elephant Man, 1980), Derek Jarman (Caravaggio, 1986), Ken Russell (Gothic, 1986) and Guy Ritchie (Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, 1998)?

And, of course, he did. His debut effort, the tough-minded father/son crime drama Wild Bill is the polar opposite of this follow-up, the sweet-natured musical drama, Sunshine on Leith. Having made his first on-screen appearance in Alan Parker’s 1976 musical, Bugsy Malone, Fletcher exhibits an affinity for the genre; his adaptation of the hit stage play is to Scottish audiences as Mamma Mia! is to The Me Generation and  and Rock of Ages is to Gen X-ers – a bigscreen jukebox jam very loosely held together by a hoary plotline as old as cinema itself.

Essentially the story of three romances that all take place within a single family in Edinburgh (or Leith, to the locals), we meet the two key protagonists Davy (George Mackay) and Ally (Kevin Guthrie) as soldiers, deeply embedded in Afghanistan. Fletcher dazzles with the opening sequence, in which the lads platoon chants a traditional chorus of courage as they surge further in to enemy territory, with tragic results.

Two months later, the best mates have returned to their hometown having been honourably discharged, determined to rebuild their lives. Davy’s mother Jean (a terrific Jane Horrocks, employing all the musical brio that brought her international fame in 1998’s Little Voice) and father Rab (an against-type Peter Mullan) are raising their college-graduate daughter, Liz (Freya Mavor); Liz has a history with Ally, who hopes to consolidate his future with her. Davy needs a lovelife and is soon wooing Liz’s friend, Brit beauty Yvonne (Antonia Thomas).

As is the way with all feel-good films, the key characters must hit rock-bottom before scaling the musical mountaintop, and so it goes. The secret daughter Rab never knew he had resurfaces (in the form of the lovely Sarah Vickers), threatening his otherwise stable marriage; Ally and Liz stumble when her ambition overrides his romantic dreams; and, in the least convincing love hiccup, Davy and Yvonne hit a rough patch when he can’t put aside his hatred of her homeland to make it work with her.

Perhaps the biggest surprise the film offers to audiences outside of Scotland is that the brotherly pop duo The Proclaimers, who disappeared into trivia contest oblivion after their late 80’s hits ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ and ‘I’m On My Way’ faded, are national treasures in their homeland and had enough songs to fill out a stage-to-screen musical (the pair, Craig and Charlie Reid, make a fleeting cameo). The arrangements are ideally suited to the cast and expertly worked into the narrative, even when it creaks with sentimentality and stretches credibility.

Angry-man icon Mullan warbles through his tunes with a gravelly intensity, ala Tom Waits, all the while totally convincing as the troubled patriarch; character actor Jason Flemyng enlivens with a rockin’ rendition just when the film needs it. The thick brogue and local dialect (what is havering?) is occasionally distracting, but the inherent pleasure derived from a good movie musical is always present. Fletcher doesn’t offer up a genre-bending Luhrmann-esque redefinition of the genre, but nor does this sweet, simple material require it.