Standard fare lifted by heart, music

HE has the voice of an angel and a hell of an attitude problem, but 11-year-old Stet (Garrett Wareing) bows to no man - not even if that man holds the key to the musical opportunity of a lifetime.

As far as coming-of-age stories go, Boychoir is pretty standard stuff, with a cast of characters that typically populate triumph-over-adversity films of this nature. But formulaic and predictable though it may be, there is still enough - in the narrative, the acting and, most of all, the singing - to make this an interesting family drama.

The film, directed by French-Canadian filmmaker Francois Girard (Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, 1993 and The Red Violin, 1998), is about an angry young boy who learns to channel his rage and unharnessed singing talent into something more palpable.