Breaking Out review – doc about Irish singer-songwriter lays the piety on thick

This film about Fergus O’Farrell cleverly questions how disability inhibits mainstream success but falls back on cliche

This tribute to the Irish singer-songwriter Fergus O’Farrell is loving and competently made, but to be honest it’s a wee bit of a snooze, thickly dusted as it is with platitudes and piety. O’Farrell, who died in 2016 from muscular dystrophy (with which he was diagnosed as a child), had been the lead singer in a cult band called Interference, who never quite made it big back in the late 1980s/early 90s.

You could posit all sorts of reasons for his lack of success, such as the fact that record companies were hesitant to sign an act whose front man was in a wheelchair, or that there was just too much competition in the rammed Dublin music scene at a time, when everyone thought they could be the next U2. Or perhaps – whisper it – it’s because the music isn’t all that great. O’Farrell certainly had a belter of a voice, and it’s touching to see him performing in his heyday when he was a strikingly handsome fellow with a hideous mullet. But there were scads of bands around at the time who could [...]

Read article at theguardian.com

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