Films Picks: Sing Street, O3-Flats, Captain Fantastic

Ferdia Walsh-Peelo (above right) and Lucy Boynton (above left). PHOTO: SHAW ORGANISATION

SING STREET (PG13)

206 minutes/5/5 stars

Dublin in the 1980s is a hard place for Conor (played with a winning swagger by first-time actor Ferdia Walsh-Peelo). The Irish economy is tanking and money woes are tearing apart his parents' marriage. Conor grows up, mainly by falling in love - with the unattainable Raphina (Lucy Boynton), the music of Hall and Oates, A-ha, Duran Duran, Joe Jackson, and the lads in his rock band (who, like Walsh-Peelo, are mainly instrumentalists acting for the first time).

Writer-director John Carney made two other films in which pop and rock do the job of dialogue and action: The Oscar-winning Once (2007) and Begin Again (2013), but this is the most autobiographical of the three and the most entertaining.


03-FLATS (PG13)

99 minutes/4/5 stars

Singapore film-maker Lei Yuan Bin's award-winning documentary was made as part of a larger study on the idea of domesticity in public housing.

Three single women, each living alone, are looked at quietly as they go about their lives. The result is a moving portrait of what it means to make a home in modern-day Singapore. This film is featured in a retrospective screening of the works of local film-making collective, 13 Little Pictures.

WHERE: The Projector, 6001 Beach Road, Golden Mile Tower, 05-00 MRT: Nicoll Highway WHEN: Tomorrow, 2.30pm ADMISSION: $13 INFO: theprojector.sg


CAPTAIN FANTASTIC (M18)

119 minutes, 4.5/5 stars

Ben Cash (Viggo Mortensen, extreme right) and his brood have set up home in the leafy splendour of the forests of the Pacific North-west. No phones, computers or screens of any kind distract the kids from hunting-gathering, meditation, strenuous exercise and readings from the classics of the American Left. Ben's goal is to raise a generation of philosopher-kings.

After a decade of isolation, an emergency forces them to leave their refuge and, in a schoolbus named Steve, the group smacks headfirst into junk culture, high-fructose-corn-syrup America.

Matt Ross won the directing prize in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes for this work, filled with memorable characters and winning performances, especially from the children.


PHOTOS: SHAW ORGANISATION, SGIFF, DHEEPAN

DHEEPAN (NC16)

114 minutes

A former soldier (Jesuthasan Antonythasan, right), a woman who claims to be his wife, and a girl who says she is their daughter are Sri Lankan refugees resettled into a tough part of Paris. They have to cope with culture shock, while dealing with secrets and lies carried over from the old country.

The French production - directed and co-written by Jacques Audiard, maker of the critically acclaimed Rust And Bone (2012) and A Prophet (2009) - won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival last year. WHERE: The Projector, 6001 Beach Road, Golden Mile Tower, 05-00 MRT: Nicoll Highway WHEN: From tomorrow, various timings ADMISSION: $13 INFO: theprojector.sg

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on August 05, 2016, with the headline Films Picks: Sing Street, O3-Flats, Captain Fantastic. Subscribe