There really isn't much of a story here and the whole movie feels like a sequence of barely connected scenes. Wherever there is music, there is also entertaining choreography and good editing - those scenes are always great, no matter how slow and boring the rest of the movie feels. Acting is decent tho and Emily Browning certainly shows a lot of talent.
There might be a point in the stark contrast between the joy of the musical scenes and the slowly crushing boredom of the "mundane" ones, namely that it is used to show the main character's problem with accepting "real life" and her escapes from it to music. The result is unconvincing, especially for a mainstream viewer - the contrast between the two styles only adds to the general inconsistency of the movie.
I would not recommend this to a casual movie viewer, perhaps to people who really are into musicals or youth movies. It certainly helps to show that a good musical requires much more than good songs. The soundtrack, however, that you should get.
There might be a point in the stark contrast between the joy of the musical scenes and the slowly crushing boredom of the "mundane" ones, namely that it is used to show the main character's problem with accepting "real life" and her escapes from it to music. The result is unconvincing, especially for a mainstream viewer - the contrast between the two styles only adds to the general inconsistency of the movie.
I would not recommend this to a casual movie viewer, perhaps to people who really are into musicals or youth movies. It certainly helps to show that a good musical requires much more than good songs. The soundtrack, however, that you should get.