Boychoir is about Stet Tate (Garrett Wareing), a troubled eleven-year-old from Odessa, Texas with a gift for singing. His mom dies in a car accident. His father (Josh Lucas), who has his own family, doesn’t really want anything to do with him, and intends to send him to foster care. But a teacher that believes in Stet convinces his father to send him instead to a prestigious boychoir academy on the East Coast. Stet has no real desire to be there at first, but is eventually driven to develop his talent. But first he must suffer the politics and the jealousy that come with being in this choir, and the attentions of the school’s demanding choirmaster Carvelle (Dustin Hoffman).
The film invests heavily in the sadness of its main character. It isn’t enough that he’s a poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks. It isn’t enough that his mother is dead and his father wants to keep him a secret from his “real” family. When he gets to the school, he is also treated as a complete outsider, and he finds himself the target to the top dog in school. Later in the film, things get pretty hilarious when said top dog attempts a nefarious scheme and stands in the wings of a boychoir performance staring daggers at our young hero.
In short, the narrative could stand to be just a tad more restrained. The film goes steps too far in trying to build sympathy for the character. In truth, this could all have been much more simple. Even if all the extenuating tragic circumstances were excised, we’d still have a story of a shy kid that discovers that he has a talent, and then goes through the pressure cooker that is one of the most prestigious boychoir academies in the world. But the film insists on these dramatic clichés, and while the final product isn’t terrible, it does emerge as melodramatic fluff.
The film is pretty good when it gets to the nitty gritty of what it takes to succeed in one of these schools. The best segments linger on the determination of this young singer to become something greater than what he thought he could ever be. He learns to read music from another shy classmate. He goes through the rigorous training of the academy. And on his own, he finds little corners of the school where he can unleash his remarkable voice. This is pretty compelling on its own. Add to that the drama behind what it takes to run an academy like this, and there’s already plenty of interesting, unique content to fill any dramatic quota.
There’s plenty of appeal in the cast as well. Young Garrett Wareing has strong presence on screen. There are dodgy scenes here and there, but the young actor has plenty of room to grow. Dustin Hoffman plays gruff and restrained through the entire film, the actor somehow taking all of the screen without doing anything at all. It’s great, powerful stuff. Eddie Izzard and Kathy Bates fill out the edges of this movie with fun little turns as faculty members who must deal with the force of personality that Hoffman’s character brings. It’s great stuff.
Boychoir has a very good movie in the middle of it. It is just the story of a young man pushing himself to be the best, despite never knowing he wanted to be the best. But there is more movie surrounding this core; a multitude of dramatic tragedies that threaten to push the story to the realm of the ridiculous. It doesn’t quite do that. In the end, the good and the bad kind of balance out, creating an experience that falls short of transcendence, but isn’t really bad, either. This is one of those where your mileage will like vary.
My Rating:
