Good Vibrations (2012) directed by Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn, 18th March

Plot

A biopic of an unconventional record shop owner Terri Hooley who discovers a love for punk music and sets up his own label. In doing so he unwittingly becomes a godfather to the budding underground punk scene. Through punk music it allows the young to escape from the sectarianism. Against the back drop of North Ireland in the 1970s during the Troubles.

Review

The film opens with a young boy playing in a garden who has a love for music. Unlike other boys he comes from an unconventional socialist family and for this he is picked on. This does not stop him from being different and conforming with the rest. This is a bit difficult for anyone living in Northern Ireland.

As the Troubles start old friends take sides and old fiends become rivals. For Terri he chooses neither and becomes a pariah to both. For Terri he sees music as as a focus for people to coming together regardless of religious belief. With this he opens a music shop on the most bombed road in Belfast but he shows a canny insight in the problems and gets old friends now rivals to join him one more time in a pub and gives out albums to stop protection racketeering, destruction of his shop and death threats to him.

As a record store owner he discovers punk accidentally through a school boy who asks him for a punk record. He does not have it as he has a love of Country and Rock and Roll. So he orders the record and decides to see an underground punk gig. The gig blows his mind away and sets off a series of events which he cannot control but just goes with it. Setting up his own label, recording a band, pressing a record and touring Northern Ireland ( not an advisable thing to do). In the process he discovers the Undertones and believing in them goes to London to promote them. He is a man of passion and belief.

Terri Hooley is no saint and is also flawed showing not much of a great flare for business acumen. Though he is a canny man having an insight to other men and knowing what is good music before others do.

Richard Dormer gives a great turn as Terri Hooley playing him with passion and great belief. Jodie Whittaker who plays his long suffering wife is given a very limited role.

The look of the film also gives an authenticity to it. The sets and the costumes are great and really takes you back to that time of the 70s. Whilst the film is interspersed with archive footage and adds to the atmosphere of the film and emphasises that all these events did take place in reality. Occasionally we get Hank Williams references who only appears to Terri.

One surreal and effective scene is when Terri takes some drugs to calm himself before knocking on all the doors of record labels whilst plugging the Undertones.

This is a charming film showing that a love of music can get people together regardless of religious divide. The film is about the music and the passion that it can inspire in people against a difficult backdrop. Go see it and it also has a great sound track to boot too.

8/10