Film review: Boychoir – Dustin Hoffman can’t save this formulaic musical drama
"Utterly predictable" melodrama is a poor man's Whiplash
A wayward teenager redeems himself with his angelic voice in this utterly predictable, if also mildly satisfying, melodrama by François Girard, the French-Canadian director of such classical music-themed movies as The Red Violin (1998) and Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993).
On the same day that Stet (newcomer Garrett Wareing) loses his alcoholic single mother in a car accident, the gifted 11-year-old boy is recommended by the kind administrator of his Texas public school (Debra Winger) for a place at a fictionalised version of the elite American Boychoir School in New Jersey. Then his wealthy, long-estranged father (Josh Lucas) comes along to buy his way in – if only to keep the boy away from his new family.
While the private boarding school’s pragmatic headmistress (Kathy Bates) is happy to receive the untrained Stet, quite implausibly believing he can singlehandedly elevate the choir’s standard to that of hot New York gigs, her no-nonsense choirmaster Carvelle (Dustin Hoffman) is turned off by both the “donation” of the boy’s father and Stet’s own lack of discipline.