Clubbing and
drugging
>> 24 Hour Party People recounts Manchester’s hairy Hacienda club era

by MATTHEW HAYS

In keeping with the brazenly subjective historical biopic The Kid Stays in the Picture, 24 Hour Party People-director Michael Winterbottom’s loving ode to Manchester’s raucous club and music impresario Tony Wilson-makes no bones about its perspective.

This is the story of Joy Division, New Order, the Hacienda and various other bits of vital Brit pop history, as told from Wilson’s point of view. Early in the film we see Wilson attending a Sex Pistols gig while working as a TV talk-show host. He’s soon bitten by the punk bug, immediately sensing that these blokes are the Next Big Thing. Wilson, older than club kids at that time, more intellectual than most of those in the music scene, still had a hankering for it-and a pretty sharp sense of the coming trends.

Winterbottom’s episodic and often wildly uneven film was shot much like a bit of cinéma-verité. He took over 100 hours of footage, much of it improvised by cast. Winterbottom then shaved it down to what it is, a brash and often thoroughly entertaining bit of night life that will leave clubbers of a certain generation terrifically nostalgic. There are the backstage rows, various bits of shagging, untimely rock-star suicides, shootings at the Hacienda and cynical posturing by most involved. For those of us who came of age in that era, this is a priceless slice of the scene, a look back at what it meant to be jaded in the ’80s.

This film wouldn’t fly if it weren’t for a cracker jack performance by Steve Coogan, the British comic who fills the role of Wilson. Coogan clearly sensed the opportunity to take a living legend and make the man his own; he plays Wilson to the hilt, often leering directly into the camera for hilarious asides, all, apparently, ad libbed. It’s a funny, dimensional turn in a film that doesn’t always work, but retains an overall appeal despite its shortcomings. :

24 Hour Party People opens Friday, Sept. 6

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