Broken Social Scene is, in my opinion, one of the finest and most
important Canadian bands to emerge from the last decade. One of their
biggest contributions was starting their own label Arts & Crafts,
which is a consistently reliable source for quality Canadian music,
even branching out and attracting some international acts such as
Bloc Party and Moby. But the band apparently didn't want to stay strictly in
the music business and thus we have their first film called This
Movie Is Broken. The story is that Bruno (Greg
Calderone) has had a crush on Caroline Rush (Georgina Reilly)
and through a series of events that the film doesn't really show us
or touch on, they spend the night together. Caroline is only in town
for another night though because she lives in Paris and is only back
for a short while. But Bruno really likes her and wants to date her
seriously... oh no! But how can their love ever be?
So, how does Broken
Social Scene fit into all of this? Well, the back drop of this whole
movie is Toronto during a city strike in which the band plays a free
show due to a cancellation of another venue. And go figure, both main
characters love the band and want to see the performance. And that's
about it. I suppose I shouldn't have been expecting a really great
story, but I think I was still quite surprised at the lack of
substance in the film. It really just feels like an overly expensive
and over produced concert video. I guess it is just that.
But to be fair, it is a
pretty good concert video. I would love to see Broken Social Scene
live because it looks like a real party on stage. The songs that I
knew were great to hear in a different context and the live
renditions took some very cool creative liberties. I really enjoyed
that aspect of the movie, but I'm a pretty big fan of the band. If
you aren't, I can't imagine that this movie would really interest
you. Some of the live stuff might win you over, but maybe an actual
full concert video would serve that purpose better.
The actors they got to
play the lead roles are actually pretty talented. I've seen Georgina
Reilly before in the movie Pontypool, another Canadian movie I
reviewed here. She seems to be fairly talented. Greg
Calderone seems to do pretty well in the role of Bruno as well. I
suppose the problem is that, for the most part, these parts aren't
particularly demanding. The character seems pretty flat and don't
really change much from the start of the movie to the finish. I guess
it makes me wonder what the purpose of the story is at all.
Actually, yes, that is the main problem of this movie. I don't know what it's purpose is. I don't know what people in the film or watching the film learn from the events in the movie. Even the surprises near the end, including an unrealistic and completely unnecessary homoerotic turn in the third act. Seemed to me that with that they were going for shock value, ignoring any logical sense. I guess since the story basically has no climax, that was the closest thing they had, so to speak.
The film looks a little
too “typically indie” for my tastes. There are too many long
shots of the Toronto cityscape and too many awkward close ups on
people's faces during dialogue. This isn't a problem so much as just
a visual style that doesn't work for me personally. It looks to me
like something that was either thrown together or contrived to have a
look to it. Of course, all visual styles for movies are contrived
because they have to be; the key is that you're supposed to make it
look natural and not draw any attention to that fact.
As a big supporter of
Broken Social Scene, this is a fair bit of a disappointment for me.
This of course isn't the first time great musicians have dabbled in
film. At least the band had sense enough to get an actual director,
unlike The Flaming Lips' foolhardy science fiction effort Christmas
On Mars. That one at least reflected a bit of The Flaming Lips'
eccentric personality. I don't feel that This Movie is Broken
feels like a movie that belongs with Broken Social Scene. I never
thought of their music as particularly romantic. Nor do I find their
music contrived, bland or pointless.
So... where can I get
the full concert footage? I'd gladly watch that again.
1.5 Stars
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