A boy meets girl film set in an 80s Ireland. A log-line that is neighboured with the very loveable film "Sing Street" directed by John Carney.
Although the skeleton of their stories are similar, Danny Boy drifts away from any sense of the charm, the believability, and the heart that Sing Street was able to achieve in its runtime.
Instead, Danny Boy entailed of three unbelievably awkward sex scenes, an inconsistent personality to our main protagonist, eye rolling performances contributed by a poorly written script, the dormant dude on the stairs? And a head ache inducing dinner scene, where you begin to dislike every character immediately.
Right, the sex scenes. Why does this even feature and why three times? Huge script doctoring is needed here as our main protagonist "Danny" is a supposedly shy boy around girls he likes, but in one of many sex scenes, he surprisingly proceeds to mimic a dog which made me and my fellow film enthusiasts recede into our couches. It added no progression of the story or to the character development of Danny, a character that I want to root for. And then it happens two more times...let's move on.
Performance wise, Darragh Byrne is a likeable actor on screen, but was innocently given poor direction. With the stammering nature, the likes of The Kings Speech should of given some inspiration on how to direct this part of a character. In Danny Boy, it's on,off,on,off, and then the film forgets the stammer in the third act without ever acknowledging a resolution to his issue in an earned way.
Then there's the awful dinner scene where we see Danny bring home a girl to meet the family. The mother and sister character take an immediate dislike to the new girl for no reason at all. From a script point of view, it's not evident that the writers were ever at an Irish dinner table, as there's an over the top reaction of hate towards the new girl from the mother and sister character with no justification. At first I thought the sister character was on the side of Danny as she introduces and supports him at first but becomes a headache for both Danny and the audience towards the third act.
The dormant guy on the stairs? Multiple appearances? Who knows. Anyways.
Thread carefully of the 10/10 reviews for this film as it's worrying that some reviews may be from the cast and crews family.
The production value of the film was pretty solid with a convincing setting of an 80s Ireland. Even a retro bus and Garda uniform on site which was greatly appreciated. The make up and costume department did a great job at capturing the vibe and attitudes of the characters and suited the time line to a tea. The music was a joy to listen to and contributed nicely to the charming tone that they tried to achieve in the first place.
Overall, there's a potential story here, but it's been told better by other coming of age stories set in Ireland that are frequent in mind.
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