Hunky Dory film review During the summer of 1976 in a small Welsh town, ambitious drama teacher Viv (Minnie Driver) tries to unite her class against condescending sterner teachers, the personal problems of both her and her students, and even the elements. The play is a David Bowie-meets-The Tempest 'groovy' production complete with full student orchestra, glitter and even a role filled by the headmaster (Robert Pugh). While looking at school politics and bullying, Hunky Dory also delves into the personal lives of the students and teachers, and the climate in which they lived: sex, sexuality, jealousy, drugs, #depression, aging, death, racism and aspiration. Balancing well those two tricky elements of humour and solemn emotion, Hunky Dory is a patchwork of lives, loves and losses centred around the musical they all work towards and affected by the environment in which they struggle. Let the first thing said about this film be this: every so often, a really good film comes along which may not be a masterpiece, which may not be groundbreaking, but it's damn 'feel good'. Recent films in this ilk which spring to mind are such as Love & Other Drugs - which I adored and cried at - Submarine - heretically ignored by most of the awards ceremonies - The Art Of Getting By - enormously underrated - and Tamara Drewe - which made me cry, too. When a film is described as 'feel good', most cinephiles cringe; it usually means Hollywood's mass produced laughs with box office faces slapped onto innuendo-filled posters. But the modesty with which Hunk Dory and those other films listed conduct themselves, the originality with which their narratives are conceived (Hunky Dory was written by Laurence Coriat) and directed (Marc Evans), the heart from the actors, and, most importantly, the delivery of both jokes and lines of great emotional intensity - these things give a good name to 'feel good'. Having read a synopsis of the film, I expected it to play like a Welsh Glee with a bit of Shakespeare. Thankfully, the brash sentimentality of the former was excluded from Hunky Dory; and there were no more than about fifteen lines of Shakespeare, and then only spoken during rehearsal scenes and never used for much importance. There are a few very tense scenes and just a couple of obvious plot points. None of the songs were original, but a few notes on their imaginative arrangements are worth making. The sound mixing was brilliantly detailed: elements of the track were brought into the foreground when appropriate with just the right balance. The orchestration was whimsical, notably the accompaniment of the melody with tuned milk bottles. Further, the singers were all very good! (Most songs were sung by Aneurin Barnard, he of BBC Four's We'll Take Manhattan and whose falsetto control is impressive; Danielle Branch; and good newcomer Tomos Harries) And most lip synced as well as the instrumentalists did. Also, the play itself was very well done. I judge plays (when I'm lucky enough to see them) on how cold they make me feel (from goosebumps). I was positively chilly at Hunky Dory. In summary, I urge everyone to see this film. It's not outstanding, but I was upstanding for how up it made me feel. It's undoubtedly, objectively funny; it's got real emotion behind it; and every so often, these things are punctuated by well-done David Bowie, ELO, Nick Drake et al. songs next to brief spurts of Shakespeare. I couldn't find anything wrong with this film. Hunky Dory is out on DVD on the 25th of June 2012. BBFC 15 This review was taken from my blog: matthewhurstfilm.blogspot.co.uk