{"id":15136,"date":"2014-05-27T14:39:41","date_gmt":"2014-05-27T04:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=15136"},"modified":"2014-05-22T14:40:05","modified_gmt":"2014-05-22T04:40:05","slug":"sunshine-on-leith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=15136","title":{"rendered":"Sunshine On Leith"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Director: \u00a0<\/strong>Dexter Fletcher
\n<\/em>Writer:\u00a0 <\/strong>Stephen Greenhorn
\n<\/em>Cast:\u00a0 <\/strong>Jason Flemyng, George McKay, Antonia Thomas<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>I<\/span>f there’s a common strand that contemporary Australian and Scottish cinema share, its that a lot of their best works are surprisingly dark in nature, often belying the more jovial aspects associated with their respective national identities.\u00a0 When I cast my mind back to Scottish films of the last twenty years, I think of Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, Mrs Brown, Ratcatcher<\/em> and Sweet Sixteen<\/em>.\u00a0 Even the films that are set in Scotland but aren’t Scottish productions per se (think Braveheart<\/em> and The Illusionist<\/em>), they are still pretty gloomy for good portions of their running time.<\/p>\n

So with that said, Sunshine On Leith<\/em>, the all-singing all-dancing Scottish musical based on songs by The Proclaimers, is the perfect tonic to all the aforementioned films.\u00a0 If you’re a Scotsman or Scotswoman abroad and are pining for the homeland but don’t want to watch a film with a dead baby crawling the ceiling in the nightmares of a man suffering from heroin withdrawl symptoms, then Sunshine On Leith<\/em> is for you!<\/p>\n

\"sunshineonleith001\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The film opens in Afghanistan of all places as two young Scottish soldiers, Ally and Davy, belt out Sky Takes The Soul<\/em> before coming under enemy fire.\u00a0 Although the firefight claims some of their friends, they return home unscathed to Edinburgh.\u00a0 Returning from service, they are welcomed home by family, friends and girlfriends.\u00a0 They have finished their tour of duty and the world is their oyster.<\/p>\n

Or is it?\u00a0 Ally dates Davy’s sister Liz who appears to be outgrowing life in Edinburgh and possibly life with Ally.\u00a0 Davy wants to settle down and start a family which is the last thing Liz wants.\u00a0 She aspires to see the world and applies for a nursing role in Florida as her ticket out of town.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Davy is frustrated by his empty career prospects as he gets landed working in a call centre.\u00a0 Although things momentarily look up when he begins dating the beautiful Yvonne, his world comes crumbling down when the 25th wedding anniversary of his parents Rab and Jean ends in disaster.\u00a0 Jean discovers that Rab was unfaithful in the early years of their marriage and has an adult lovechild who he has been in contact with.\u00a0 A fight breaks out at the party and Davy almost strikes Yvonne inadvertently.<\/p>\n

Things sound messy for Davy, his family and his friends but it’s nothing an enthusiastic musical number and dance routine can’t fix.<\/p>\n

\"sunshineonleith002\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sunshine On Leith<\/em> is the sort of film that the tourism board of Scotland would absolutely eat up.\u00a0 They should give this DVD away at travel expos.\u00a0 Edinburgh looks absolutely picturesque, with sunny skies and not a drop of rain.\u00a0 The cast of characters stroll past virtually every major Edinburgh landmark and scenic viewpoint you could think of and there is nary a drunkard or junkie in sight.\u00a0 Peter Mullan, who memorably played the Mother Superior heroin dealer in Trainspotting<\/em>, makes an appearance in Sunshine On Leith<\/em> where he plays a kindly, gentle father who loves his kids and wants the best for them.\u00a0 This is Scotland putting its best and tidiest foot forward.<\/p>\n

The lifeblood of any good musical comes from the song selection and the performances of its leads.\u00a0 Sunshine On Leith<\/em> has the first part covered handily thanks to its catalogue of Proclaimers songs that it mines to good effect.\u00a0 I’m not a Proclaimers fan so I didn’t know every tune but it didn’t take me very long to begin tapping my toes or start humming along to the unfamiliar material.\u00a0 The performances from the four leads – George McKay, Kevin Guthrie, Antonia Thomas and Freya Mavor – are all universally excellent.\u00a0 They give spirited, enthusiastic, lung busting performances that do justice to the songs they cover.<\/p>\n

I have to admit, part of the reason I think I liked Sunshine On Leith<\/em> was the unlikely setting.\u00a0 There is nothing particularly revolutionary or outstanding about the singing, dance choreography or the storytelling in Sunshine On Leith<\/em>.\u00a0 What gives it such a unique appeal is that it has such a particular cultural identity.\u00a0 A cheery, up tempo Scottish musical sounds like an unlikely recipe for a successful film.\u00a0 It works better than you can imagine.\u00a0 It’s a little bit schmaltzy, unashamed saccharine and full of folksy charm and thats exactly why I like it so much.<\/p>\n

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When I wake up, well I know I’m gonna be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1954,109,1969],"class_list":["post-15136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films","tag-musical","tag-scotland","tag-sunshine-on-leith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15136"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15145,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15136\/revisions\/15145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}