Films that capture the vibrancy, energy and soul of great pop are exceedingly uncommon.
A Hard Day’s Night captured Beatlemania.
The 2002 documentary Standing In The Shadows Of Motown was a moving tribute to Tamla Motown.
Richard
Dormer is irrepressible as Hooley, and Jodie Whittaker ¿ who¿s
excelling on TV at present, playing the role of her life in BroadchurchGood Vibrations may sound like the story of The Beach Boys, but it isn’t.
It’s the biopic of little-known rock figure Terri Hooley, the so-called ‘godfather of punk’, who opened a record shop in Belfast during the Troubles and discovered a good many Irish punk bands, most of whom didn’t achieve record contracts.
You may be wondering why he deserves a biopic. His contribution to pop is hardly that of Brian Epstein, Berry Gordy or Phil Spector. Even the title ‘godfather of punk’ belongs more properly to Malcolm McLaren, who — for better and worse — gave us the Sex Pistols.
Good Vibrations may have a musically insignificant subject, but it celebrates him with infectiously barmy enthusiasm. Hooley was and is an engaging figure, full of energy, and he had a bravery — some might say foolhardiness — in sticking up for music that brought youth together across the religious divide.
Hooley lost an eye during childhood, and I was reminded of Erasmus’s aphorism: ‘In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.’
Hooley clearly saw that in Northern Ireland, ‘community’ was a euphemism for ‘side’, and used pop music as a way to create a much more real community.
Because of Hooley’s managerial incompetence and drink-sodden fecklessness, this is not a rags-to-riches story. He starts in rags and ends in them.
It’s the story of a man who never cared about money. The riches he sought were in musical excitement and a sense of unity.
This is a film of no great sophistication. Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn direct with little panache, and the script, by Glenn Patterson and Colin Carberry, might have been funnier. It could have been more honest about the number of other people during the Troubles who were working in a much more direct way for peace.
Some good actors — such as Dylan Moran, Liam Cunningham and Adrian Dunbar — have too little to do. And a few of the performances are awful, especially that bloke who turns up and says he’s John Peel.
Still, Richard Dormer is irrepressible as Hooley, and Jodie Whittaker — who’s excelling on TV at present, playing the role of her life in Broadchurch — gives a sturdy, sympathetic performance as his long-suffering wife.
The glory of Good Vibrations is that it captures the unique appeal of pop music at the moment of creation.
There’s one sequence, where our hero hears the song which could serve as his anthem, and it is worth the price of admission on its own. It’s The Undertones performing Teenage Kicks, a song that Peel named as his favourite record of all time.
The song’s been covered by such modern giants as One Direction, Jedward and The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, but The Undertones’ version is still the one to hear.
Any film that can bring tears to your eyes by playing a minor hit from 1978 — Teenage Kicks climbed only as far as number 31 in the UK singles chart — is all right with me.