Soundtrack to Sixteen

Firstly, the title: SOUNDTRACK To Sixteen: I kept trying to figure out what that was supposed to mean. It wasn't the dialogue or the music score -- as I really hoped. The only soundtrack that played through this film was of misanthropy and glumness.

The characters aren't engaging or well-formed. The nuance that defines winning films in this category just isn't here.

It takes way too long for the lead characters' paths to intersect and it doesn't feel feasible or natural. If it was a crowded situation in the same setting and they were thrust together, that would have been better than the concocted, forced encounter that appears.

Then the next half of the film plays before they connect.

What really plays out is all the bones of a SHORT FILM padded out to fill 93 minutes -- which turns out feeling much much longer.

Watching this at home in quarantine took almost three hours, because I kept getting distracted and the film didn't pull me in.

I love how it's set in the 2000s and also the beautiful Barbican locations! A wonderful film, looking forward to whatever the Shakespeare sisters have in store for them.

Anyone who has been through the British secondary school system within the past 20 years will find this film uncomfortably familiar. Safe to say, everyone has their own uniquely puzzling and stressful adolescent years (which, as the film highlights, school environments can't help but exacerbate) and this certainly is the case for protagonists Maisy and Ben, whose difficulties feel all too real and relatable. For me, this has always been a time in my life which I would prefer not to revisit, yet Soundtrack to Sixteen took me straight back there with a vengeance, anxiety and all.

Far from being an existential horror fest however, the film is very good humoured and Maisy's and Ben's underlying sweetness brings a playfulness which compliments the film's quirkiness and depictions of teenage angst. On the whole, it is well balanced and paced without overstaying its (admittedly short) run time and never dissolves into pretentiousness.

Whilst budgeting restrictions are apparent (and I imagine its budget was smaller than comes across) the film plays to its strengths, thanks to some excellent direction and writing from Hillary and Anna Shakespeare along with a superb cast who bring the film together. Soundtrack to Sixteen won't change the way you see coming-of-age dramas but it will renew your faith in them.

What I liked most about the film is that it wasn't a nostalgia-fest, as much coming of age genre seem to be. It was an honest reflection of the glorious highs and crushing lows that occur (sometimes daily) at that age. I enjoyed it a great deal. Good performances and a solid directorial debut from the London-based Shakespeare Sisters.

The title has an interesting connection to the story. Ben has been into music growing up and, starting when he was eleven, each year made a CD of the music he listened to during that year. It became a sort of music diary of his growing up. Near the end of this movie he gave Maisy one which he titled "Soundtrack to Sixteen."

Maisy and Ben are 16-yr-old London school students, but they are played by actors born in 1993 which probably made them 26 during filming. Each lives a sort of boring life, inexperienced in the ways of romance, and studiously looking forward to college. They meet quite by accident at a party, then again later when they are on the same bus.

Ben wants to study Physics but isn't very good at the subject. But Maisy is and they help each other, as Ben is good at History. The movie pretty much covers the school year, announcing chapters by the month, then the days leading up to final exams.

The filmmakers use the technique of letting us hear the thoughts that Maisy and Ben are having during key scenes, reflecting their normal insecurities of kids that age. It almost follows the standard Hallmark process where two people meet, develop a relationship, have a falling out of sorts, then we all know what happens during the last minute of the movie.

I enjoyed the viewing as something different, and watching it reminded me of the study habits of cramming the night before the exam, something I was doing exactly 60 years ago as I began my first year of college.

The movie was written and directed by a young team of sisters, Hillary and Anna, The Shakespeare Sisters. So I would suppose that, although fictional, the story is pretty close to reality. In fact Hillary started her career in science, completing an undergrad in Physics at Imperial College, then a masters in Computer Science at Oxford. A close parallel to what Ben had wanted.

At home, streaming on Peacock.