The movie is not just your standard rock movie with all the attendant clichés. It also attempts to touch on a jumble of issues such as marital neglect, alcoholism, sectarianism, provincial politics, and unrequited ambition. These weighty themes are given the lightest of touches and hit these notes so insistently and with such a lack of grace that it makes it a difficult movie to like. The main character is the flaky and self obsessed owner of a record store whose aim in life is to promote a punk concert to change people's lives (what type of change is not developed). Neither are any of the supporting characters developed and as such we feel no affinity towards them. The movie is very provincial as is the dialect which is difficult to interpret. The movie's parochialism is emphasized when the main character equates Belfast Northern Ireland (the movies setting) to New York and London – "New York has the haircuts London has the trousers but Belfast has the reason" what ever that means. I suggest your money would be better spent on Richard England's 'East End Babylon' if you want to see how a rock and roll movie can be used as a vehicle to address serious grown up themes.
Review of Good Vibrations
