After his single mother dies, a young boy with an excellent voice is sent to a prestigious choir school, and has trouble adapting to the culture of the school.
Director: François Girard
Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Kathy Bates, Eddie Izzard, Garrett Wareing.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3302706/
Watched online, ok print.
No songs in the Soundtracks, plenty onscreen, primarily classical choir.
OK film, very much what you would expect from the synopsis and cast. The wrinkle not mentioned: the boy's father was a fling, and had supported the mother financially, but was married with a family and plenty of cash. So he buys the boy a space in the school to park him somewhere out of sight. That wrinkle gets resolved by film's end.
EI is nearly despicable. When the established soloist in the choir gets sick and our "orphan" boy is given his part, the star steals his sheet music to sabotage him. EI, one of the choir teachers, catches him with the pages, confiscates them, looks down his nose at the boy and says "If you're going to cheat, cheat better." So the next time the boy does something sneakier and more destructive.
DH is the gruff, flawed choir master with a better sense of fair play than EI.
The "orphan" perpetrates as much as he's victimized, although most of his actions are reactions to what the other boys do/say to him.
Voice change is also a plot point.
The film's ok, not great.
Rated 6.7 (5,597)
indie, dir. Girard; 6
