Extremely shy LV lives as a recluse and spends nearly all of her time listening to her deceased father’s record collection. On an evening she then sings the songs herself, driving her mother mad (who is horrible to her) but one night when Ray hears her sing, he sees the pound signs and wants her to perform at the club he is involved in!
This is a very random and strange film. That has to be said first because it really is a bit crazy at times and certain things just don’t make sense about it at all. None of the characters are likeable at all and you want to just shake LV into life at times and understand why the other characters become very frustrated with her.
It does have some very touching moments but all of the characters are pretty strange. Billy who seems to like LV and has an obsession with his homing pigeons adds to this and at first you will wonder why he is even in the film to begin with, but at the end it all makes perfect sense really. A very different type of role for Ewan McGregor to take on, as Billy is rather geeky!
Mari who is LV’s mother really is horrible to her in so many different ways, it is difficult to watch at times as seeing someone being that nasty to their own daughter is quite disturbing. Again though this leads to a brilliant scene at the end of the film, when LV eventually finds her voice in a different way to singing.
Michael Caine really steals the show in my opinion and puts in a fantastic performance. Especially watch out for his “singing” moment, total breakdown comes to mind. He has some brilliant scenes with Jim Broadbent and they both work very well together. The moments of having a show with LV is really good to wonder if she will actually be able to sing in front of a group.
Netflix listed this film as a musical but I don’t think it has enough singing to really be classed as a proper musical. I do know however that it is performed as a stage show as well, so that must be a little different to the film. I think this is worth a watch for the performances, but be warned the characters aren’t likeable at all.