A music company exec from London is tasked by his boss with trying to sign a troupe of local folk singers in an idyllic Cornish fishing village, overcomes their scepticism of his motives and then falls for a local girl and the place itself. That's the plot in a nutshell, of course culminating in the hoary crew of performers of sea shanties getting their big record deal after going viral through their curio value. What does save the film from being just a progression through the standard checkpoints of feelgood drama is that, in essence, we know that the group is real and did get their breakthrough in the end, although actually well after the film came out. The version you see now tags the events that followed as end text. The musical numbers do pad out the running time but are also the main attraction, rich in lyrical wit and a sense of music as a preserver of history. The film's success led to a sequel that couldn't add anything to the formula, but then what else could possible be expected when the music itself hasn't changed for hundreds of years?
6/10
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