Writers: Noel S. Baker, Pat Mills and Zoe Whittall
Director: Karen Knox
BFI Flare hosts the world premiere of Noel S. Baker, Pat Mills and Zoe Whittall’s We Forgot to Break Up, a coming-of-age music story about a Canadian teen band led by a trans man whose ambition to be a success is at the expense of his relationships with the musicians who originally inspired them. Set in the late 1990s and covering a stratospheric rise to success over four years, this 95-minute film mixes a rock music documentary style captured on grainy video camera with scenes between the band members to capture their desire to break free of the restrictions of their small hometown, the hedonism of fame and sexual experimentation that pulls them apart.
Two couples, Evan and Isis, Coco and Angus devote their free time to trying to get their indie rock band off the ground with songs written by Evan and Isis. When Angus’ brother Lugh joins as an additional guitarist, fame beckons and after graduation the band agree to move to Toronto together. But the frustration of living and working together divides loyalties and when Evan starts to write songs with Lugh, the betrayals begin.
Typifying the too much too soon culture of the music industry, We Forgot to Break Up has an astute commentary on the sudden explosion of fame and the way that it reshapes strong bonds even when the band has worked together for a long time. There are insights into the song-writing process at different points in the band’s history and how that reflects the personal connections between them, giving the film its driver, while the later period in which collaboration is replaced by raising Evan into the star performer role creates further divisions that are exploited by industry professionals for profit.
Lane Webber as Evan is suitably overwhelmed by his emotional connections with both Isis and Lugh, moving from an innocent confidence in the band and his relationship to growing inner conflict as Evan struggles against his developing feelings before a little too happily embracing more focused fame. The rest of the band are a little more generic, but Daniel Gravelle as Lugh and June Laporte as Isis do well as rival love interests and colleagues.
Director Karen Knox tries to have the best of both worlds in this movie, an MTV blast of energy that captures the drinking, drugs and raucous partying that only increases in scale as the band move from rural Canada to the city and eventually to the USA, using ‘behind the scenes’ home video-style footage. But this is contrasted with more traditionally filmic sequences that explore the domestic relationships, romantic entanglements and moments of tenderness as individual characters explore their sexuality. This moving between fast and slow pacing doesn’t always work, making this feel longer than it is, but the style of We Forgot to Break Up certainly depicts the grungy glamour of turn of the millennium indie bands.
We Forgot to Break Up is screening at BFI Flare 2024 from 13-24 March.
The Reviews Hub Score:
Indie angst
