It’s 1987 in Denver, Colorado: A group of devoted young Smiths fans are devastated when they hear their favorite alternative band has broken up.
One goes so far as to hold the local Heavy Metal DJ at gunpoint so he’ll play nothing but Smiths songs.
It’s not a bad premise, but while this movie scores points for the brilliant soundtrack (20 Smiths songs!), the generic storyline and characters could have played out to any band’s music. For example, the high school grad who’s going to join the army the next day, is straight out of the 1967 musical Hair.
We first meet main character Cleo (Helena Howard of Madeline’s Madeline), a checker at Safeway, whose VW Bug is plastered with Smiths bumper stickers and whose license plate reads “MEATISMRDER.”
She lives for the band and is heartbroken when she hears, via a TV broadcast, that the band has broken up.
She immediately heads to the local record store, where clerk Dean (Ellar Coltrane of Boyhood) lets her steal cassettes because he has a crush on her.
Here’s where things start to go wrong: The main character of the film is a shoplifter, just like Morrissey sang in the song that inspired the film’s name.
A bit on the nose.
And the music magazines at the record store also have the tragic news about the end of The Smiths.
I hate to break it to you, but print publications — especially weekly music magazines — did not break news the same day as the TV in the ‘80s.
I will, however, give props to the film for mostly getting the thrift store dress code right: Dean is wearing a vintage wool sweater with leather panels that could have belonged to someone’s grandfather. And friend Patrick (James Bloor)’s button-festooned raincoat is also dead on, as is Cleo smoking with a cigarette lighter.
Why, though, would Nick’s girlfriend Sheila (Elena Kampouris) be dressed like Madonna, circa 1983? Was Denver that far behind the rest of the country on trends? When two rival Madonna wannabes dismiss her look as “So ‘Borderline,’ it’s supposed to be funny, because they’re dressed almost exactly alike. We also get a recreation of the Madonna bathroom blow-dryer scene from 1985’s Desperately Seeking Susan. Not to mention naming a character Sheila, and then having her dance and sing along to The Smiths’ song “Sheila, Take a Bow.”
Deciding to impress Helena, Dean heads to the radio station and demands that the DJ named “Full Metal Mickey” (Joe Manganiello) play The Smiths non-stop. Manganiello has the most fun with his character, even though it’s hard to believe a metalhead would, in one night, become a Smiths fan, even at gunpoint.
The young cast is very good, especially Howard as the passionate, dramatic Cleo and Bloor as the sexually conflicted Patrick, whom everyone is pushing to just come out already. And Nick Krause is also good as military-bound Billy, who bounces between crushing on Cleo and Patrick.
While it’s a happy ending for Cleo and Dean, we never do find out, by the way, if Billy joins the military or not the next day.
But the most annoying part of the film is the way that the characters are always quoting lines from Smiths songs to each other: “This night will open our eyes.” “I’d leap in front of a flying bullet for you.” “You’re going nowhere fast.” “That joke isn’t funny anymore.” Who does that in real life? To this degree?
And there’s a scene where a Siouxsie Sioux look-alike says, “I’m still spellbound,” because, of course, “Spellbound” is a Siouxsie Sioux song. (The fact that a Robert Smith-type is always chasing her is, however, kind of funny.)
There are a few good zings, including when Mickey tells Dean, “your heroes will one day put out shitty music and say stupid things that betray the past. In the end, they will only disappoint you.” Given how xenophobic Morrissey has shown himself to be in recent years, that statement couldn’t be truer.
The movie is just too self-aware, with Cleo complaining about Pretty in Pink, saying, “Is that supposed to be our lives?” while her friend replies, “The soundtrack is killer.”
Bonus features are slight; with two brief featurettes.
That’s the best thing you can say about this movie: The soundtrack is killer.
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
