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TIFF 2013: Sunshine on Leith

I'm grateful for friends like Selina who help me remember that Toronto has fantastic arts & culture offerings. As an avid TIFF fan, she's my go-to movie friend throughout the year, and even more so in September. So when she texted on the weekend to ask if I wanted to go see, Sunshine on Leith, a Scottish musical, I didn't need any other info.

I was in. And once again, wound up with more than I'd expected (last year, the Countess of Wessex attended the same film as us, Rebelle, which went on to be nominated for an Oscar, and was stunningly beautiful and upsetting). Scottish musical, yes. With an exclusively-Proclaimers soundtrack? Yes. The world premiere? Yes. Two rows in front of said Proclaimers, the film director and main actors? Yes.

Guys. And gals. It was a good movie. It avoided much of the schmalz of musicals (only one moment of eye-rolling cliched conversation), wound three love stories around the beauty of Edinburgh and the return of two young vets from overseas duty, and made me laugh out loud. I also noticed my vision was blurry from tears during one poignant scene between the long-married couple.



The soundtrack comes out on iTunes on Oct 4th, and I'm most definitely downloading it. Maybe I'll book a ticket for a trip to Scotland at the same time, because, dang. When there's sunshine on Leith, there's nowhere lovelier to be.
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