Good Vibrations

Terri Hooley lives in Belfast. He lost an eye as a child. In the seventies the city is divided; the two sides are killing each other and nobody goes into the centre. Hooley decides to open a record shop. He takes premises on the most dangerous street in the city. The shop is called Good Vibrations. Nobody comes. Then one night he goes to a punk concert and sees the young people there; they come from both sides and nobody asks where anyone is from. Hooley starts a label and presses a band's single. Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn direct. Richard Dormer plays Hooley; Jodie Whittaker is in the cast. It is an Irish and British co-production. Terri Hooley was a real person, counted as the founding figure of the Belfast punk scene. One of the singles he pressed caught the attention of a radio presenter in London, who played the track twice in a row; that moment is the film's turning point. Hooley made no money from the label; he sold his rights and went into debt. The matter it treats is building a neutral ground; music works here not as an escape but as a floor to stand on. The film uses real news footage of the period and joins it with the fiction. The narrative does not glorify Hooley; the man neglects his family and the film shows it. Its limit is structure; the narrative proceeds in a biography shape and the last section is rushed. Who it is for: anyone curious about music films and the history of Northern Ireland. Who it is not for: the shape is familiar, the pace uneven, and the references local.