Bonus Track

I liked the second half better, The first half I was suffering from second hand embarrassment so bad. George and his mom and his dad, all of them embarrassing to varying degrees, sometimes all at the same time.

Mark is more like a unicorn and this entire romance is a little idealized, well I suppose it's a teen romance of sorts, just like a lot of the straight ones are, where the cool guy notices the nerdy awkward girl and brings her out of her shell when nobody else saw the beauty and the potential in her. Only now it's with boys. There's some humour in there as well.

And good god I was confusing Jeffrey's actor with Steve Coogan. I was wondering how come he looks so young all of a sudden. Damn, it's Jack Davenport. I never noticed Josh O'Connor in there, I have no idea what character he played.

After watching a few really heavy gay-themed movies lately, this was absolutely the tonic I needed.

How lucky are young queer kids today that they get the opportunity to watch movies like this.

Some might say it's tropey, but I absolutely believe that this story hasn't been done in this way for a queer audience before.

It's warm, funny, sweet - but not as 'sickly sweet' as Heartstopper, which has been criticised as being a very sanitised version of a teen gay romance. This on the other hand feels less wistful and a bit more real (obviously it's still somewhat in the fantasy category though).

Very emotive like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and really funny and taps into cultural references and great music like Big Boys. In fact, this is a great pick me up after the finale of season 3 of Big Boys.

If this was distributed on Netflix, it would be going crazy. This could be the best gay movie you've never heard of!

Thank you to the creators. Brilliant!

It was a well-produced film. The two protagonists had understanding and loving families. The school was supportive of its students. The cast did well. I would not criticise anyone who may have looked older than the school-leaving students they portray. It is the message behind the setup that is vital, not their appearance. I can't imagine the audience boycotting Grease because the stars were much older than high school students. This film encourages an introverted child to respect and accept himself and his feelings. A new friend he met by chance, who made him feel that it was all right to be yourself, Shouldn't life allow us to meet compassionate friends who might bring us some happiness? My wife and I brought up our three kids with respect for their feelings and views. This film truly does that. The two main stars portrayed their roles with passion. The entire production team is worthy of praise for their efforts.

In small town 2005-6, George is in his last year of high school, and dreams of being a music star. However, he has failing grades, including music class, where he can only plunk out the same few notes that will form the rhythm track of his barely-started song. He holds out hope of being noticed at the year-end Leavers' Talent Show, though a kindly teacher warns him that, after the show, he will be leaving.

Along comes new student Max, son of a famous music duo (who recently separated, both professional and marital). Even if faulty, Max's rendition of a piano sonata is far above George's efforts. Despite being mobbed by girls, Max has his eye on George, and they work on his song together. While on an overnight trip to a challenge camp, Max gets George to sneak out with him to drink and have a kiss - which is captured by a paparazzo, making them big local news.

Max decides to leave for London, where he could be lost in the crowd, leaving George to perform alone at the Talent Show.

This film has an interesting concept of being divided up into "tracks", each part introduced with a different song. With his disinterest in them, the girls at school has already pegged George as gay, while lesser experience with Max means he is still not typecast - until the photo comes out. As the audience, we are waiting to see if the Bromance becomes something more.

Bonus Tracks (2024) Having gone into the film blind, there was no IMDb reviews at that point. I found a teen film based around two 16 year old boys, meeting with the pretext of helping the awkward and academically failing George, fall for the much cooler son of a musician Marvin.

George wants to leave school with something for his peers to remember him by, and he hopes that that will come at the school leavers show.

George enlists Marvin to help him with his keyboard ditty turning it into a upbeat pop singalong.

Think of Hugh Grant helping the socially awkward Marcus in "About A Boy" and you get the idea.

Its a strange film very badly cast with all of the 16 years kids, looking so much older, I'd guess the average age must be about 25 years old. Even Marvin wears a brace to make him look younger. It is an embarrassing mess of a film. Saying that if you were a teenager in 2006 the music will connect.

A poor 4/10

PS What was more annoying was my cinema treat of buying Cadbury's Crunchie Rocks only to discover that it only contained 15% honeycomb delight and 15% corn flakes, why call if Crunchie if it only contains 15% , Cadbury's hang your head in shame.