Anthropomorphism reaches a new plateau in Sing, an animal-character story in which a theater-owning koala bear tries to save his failing business by hosting a voice competition (ala “American Idol” or “The Voice”).  In this day and age such a concept is bound to succeed, and Sing is one of the holiday hits this season.  If you enjoy the singing shows on television, you should enjoy this movie.  Did I?  No, although I do like some of the musical performances, especially during the concluding sequence.

This animated film, co-directed by Garth Jennings and Christophe Lourdelet, tries to cover every possible base, which I think is its undoing.  It’s comic, but rarely funny; it’s serious, sometimes too much so.  Its music often takes a backseat to its multifaceted story, sometimes for the good, sometimes not.  Each major character has their own reason for entering the competition, and all that works very well, particularly when he or she has to choose between making the music he or she loves or settling for boring normality.  If the movie had stayed true to the singing competition format, it would have worked a great deal better, in my opinion.

But its main storyline, the one that links everything together, just drives me nuts.  The koala is Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey), and he is a small-time operator with big dreams who really ought to be in jail.  He fails to pay his union workers, dodges creditors, tries to turn his chosen performers into acts against their natures, cannot afford the competition’s prize money, and has no idea how to run a business.  His ideas for the theater during the dress rehearsal almost kill everybody in the building.  As a former theater manager I was sickened at the sight of what this idiot character does to the legacy his father left for him; it basically ruined the movie for me.

I recognize that few people will ever have or share a similar reaction to mine, and that’s okay.  Movies reach us in different ways, with one outcome being that something in a film will really strike hard at a personal feeling or belief, for better or worse.  I feel the film’s embrace of Moon’s frailties is misguided; Johnny’s father is rightly incarcerated for robbing banks — and even he gets his moment of “redemption” when he breaks out of jail just to tell Johnny that he loves him.  The fact that that scene works emotionally does not, or should not, diminish the film’s glib, unfocused, contradictory messages about right and wrong.  Thematically this story is a mess.

Yet even while I writhed in my seat, the singing animals get together to put on their concert anyway, outdoors, for free.  Their performances, and the way they all worked together, positively and with enthusiasm for each other, was absolutely uplifting.  The ending makes the movie palatable for me, and probably caps a wonderful experience for others.  If the film just hadn’t tried to be so damn dramatic in the middle, it would have been a much more positive experience for me.  As it is, I believe it to be terribly overwritten, but still works as a showcase for some very fine music.  ☆ ☆.  1 January 2017.