BOYCHOIR
DIRECTOR: Francois Girard
CAST: Dustin Hoffman, Kathy Bates, Eddie Izzard, Josh Lucas and Garrett Wareing
CLASSIFICATION: PG
RUNNING TIME: 103 minutes
RATING: ***
A teacher sings a boy’s praises. You know the narrative: a rebellious kid with immense talent is thrown into the path of a teacher who, although haunted by his own demons, sees enough potential in him to straighten him out. Usually, it’s within the sport movie genre or dance films. But it’s so rare to see the world of choral singing take on this theme.
Boychoir is that rarity. Dustin Hoffman stars as Carvelle, an ageing and super-strict choirmaster at a prestigious boys’ boarding school called the National Boychoir Academy. He is thrust into the life of newly-orphaned 11-year-old singer, Stet (Garrett Wareing), by way of his distant, rich father enrolling him at the school in lieu of an orphanage.
Stet has trouble fitting into a world where boys have been groomed from birth to be prim, proper and polish their windpipes. On the other hand, Carvelle must constantly look over his retirement-ready shoulder as Drake (played with biting humour by Eddie Izzard) is ready to assume the position of choirmaster.
There is rivalry – between students and teachers – as well as great acting from Kathy Bates (the school principal), Hoffman and Izzard. And although Boychoir is shot well and points the lens at a side of music that isn’t often glamourised on the silver screen, it presents what, albeit unintentionally, seems like a problematic world.
Boychoir lets viewers into a space where pre-pubescent boys sign autographs on CDs and are scared to grow up and have their voices change from boys to men because they won’t sound angelic anymore. It’s an infantilised position that the boys find themselves in and no amount of amazing acting can gloss over what feels like a stymieing of futures if this fiction is based on at least a little bit of fact.
Added to that, the religious motifs in this film are ubiquitous. At one point, Carvelle yells into the awesome acoustics of a church where they rehearse: “It’s a cross, it’s a crucifix, it’s a church” in order to illustrate perfect pitch control. It’s understandable because a large chunk of the history of choral music is linked to religion, but being bombarded with it for over an hour-and-a-half does get a bit much.
Boychoir is going to be loved by audiences who were once in a choir themselves. It may even be nostalgic. But it’s also an interesting look inside the (mis)education of these kids.
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