24 Hour Party People

Year: 2002

Grade: C+

Country: UK

Director: Winterbottom

Review

films about film (state and main, get shorty, player) seem to generally be better than those about music (this, high fidelity, be cool, almost famous), not sure why that is. there’s not much about the film that isbad, but i can’t say that i really fell in love with it either. it’s an interesting film because the structure is so “postmodern” – the main character is narrating the story, he looks into the camera, he points out cameos within the film, etc. this element certainly does make the film more intellectually noteworthy, and a bit more stimulating. perhaps it was an attempt to emulate its subject and be experimental and novel. one problem i had with the film is that pretty much all the music that it praised was stuff that i’m not into. joy division were okay, sex pistols were fine…but i just don’t like them that much. if it was the same film about the who and led zeppelin i would have liked it a lot more. steve coogan certainly had a fine performance, but, again, i just didn’t like him that much so i wasn’t rooting for him as much as the filmmakers would have liked.