24
Hour Party People (2002)
comedy drama
directed
by : Michael Winterbottom
featuring:
Steve Coogan - Lennie James - Shirley Anderson - Paddy Considine - Andy
Serkis
running
time : 1 hour 53 minutes
This digital-video biopic uses the life
of journalist, record mogul and club owner Tony Wilson to frame the story
of the Manchester, England, music scene from the heyday of punk through
the late-'80s "Madchester" era. As the founder of staunchly independent
Factory Records, Wilson (Steve Coogan) shepherded the careers of doomed
post-punk combo Joy Division, synth-pop superstars New Order and hedonistic
louts the Happy Mondays. Along the way, he helped bring rave culture to
Britain under the aegis of the legendary Hacienda nightclub. 24 Hour Party
People follows Wilson from his conversion to punk at a seminal Sex Pistols
concert through the suicide of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, the overwhelming
success of New Order and the eventual dissolution of the Factory empire
thanks to bad business decisions, underworld ties and the hedonistic excess
of the Happy Mondays. Directed by Michael Winterbottom and written by frequent
collaborator Frank Cottrell Boyce, 24 Hour Party People features cameos
from a large number of Manchester music luminaries. The supporting cast
includes Shirley Henderson and John Simm, both of whom appeared in Winterbottom's
Wonderland, while the film's title comes from a Happy Mondays song.
Restless and kaleidoscopic despite
its sometimes drab digital-video palette, this supremely self-aware docu-comedy
canonizes two decades worth of Manchester bands even as it deconstructs
the very process of rock 'n roll mythmaking. Steve Coogan is fantastic
as Tony Wilson, who was at once pompous and populist, visionary and short-sighted.
Through frequent asides in the direction of the audience, smirky voiceovers
and likable self-mockery, Coogan personifies the contradictions that fuelled
Wilson's remarkably diverse string of musical discoveries. Frank Cottrell
Boyce's script risks alienating audience members unfamiliar with the large
cast of rock-star characters; in America, where few of these bands ever
escaped cult status, all of the grand pop-cultural pronouncements may provoke
more head-scratching than head-nodding. But even at its most maddeningly
musicological, the film portrays big emotions, big laughs and universal
human frailties. The fine supporting cast helps ground Coogan's larger-than-life
performance, from Shirley Henderson's swept-aside wife to Sean Harris and
Danny Cunningham's voraciously self-destructive creative types. In the
end, jack-of-all-trades director Michael Winterbottom nails the particular
combination of a time, a place and a sound that can crystallize in front
of a global audience, if only for a little while.