7/10
Good film, ruined by awful casting.
18 July 2016
~~~STORY~~~

Eva is a mentally unstable teenage girl, and finds that the only way to soothe herself is song writing. When she finds out about her musical talent, she escapes the hospital that she's in and stumbles across James in a nightclub. The two form a friendship and then Eva meets Cassie, who James mentors for guitar. They all decide to form a band.

~~~STORY REVIEW~~~

The story, on the surface, is really good. Each scenario leading up to the band's formation is convincing and pretty realistic. Even during the band's "active" days, it's a somewhat convincing story. The ending.... yeah no. The ending really didn't do much for me at all, and left me with a feeling of "oh, that's it?". Pretty good story overall.

~~~MUSIC~~~

Stuart Murdoch (director and writer for GHTG) is a songwriter. He's written songs for Belle and Sebastian for around 3 decades, so it's no surprise that the songs in this film are top class, and reflect Stuart's obvious ability to write songs, even in the unfamiliar environment for writing for movies.

~~~CAST~~~

I've been following GHTG since around 2009, when the soundtrack with the original characters came out with. The voices in these were good singing voices, but I wasn't sure how the voices would be able to act.

Stuart Murdoch also probably thought this and got new members for the cast.

Emily Browning plays Eve, the main character. A pretty nice casting option if I'm honest. She fits the character pretty well and has a nice singing voice, and fits the film's vibe pretty well, holding strong in the sad and the happy parts of the film. Pretty convincing character.

Olly Alexander plays James. Again, a nice casting choice, with a nice singing voice and fits the hipster vibe of the film pretty well. Nothing to complain about here.

Now, seems good doesn't it? Well, let me get to f***ing Hannah Murray. Her voice is the most irritating thing I've ever heard in my life. She can't sing and all of her dialog and her scenes are ruined by her irritating voice. It's a shame that the main characters couldn't be all good.

~~~CONCLUSION~~~

This film is certainly great. Blank out Hannah Murray's voice, and you get some great songs out of it (wouldn't expect less from Stuart Murdoch) and a pretty feel-good vibe. It's overall a pretty nice romance/music film, although the ending just is kinda............... eh. Lazy and rushed ending just kinda ruins it a bit for me.
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