XOXO: A Vida é uma Festa

Dance music is kind of difficult to capture in film. Even portraying dance music in a pop show on television never really works, because outside of a rave club, watching dance music is a bit boring.

Director Christopher Louie in XOXO has gone with a Robert Altman route of six mainly young strangers colliding on the way to and during a rave festival.

Graham Phillips has the main role as he plays DJ Ethan a YouTuber who with the help of his friend and manager Tariq gets to DJ at the festival. However he does not have the necessary passes and the equipment he uses is not compatible with that of the festival. Tariq is unavailable as he gets lost in a drug haze as he has been inadvertently spiked. There is an older clubber who seems to be bitter about something and past business relationships. There is a beautiful young girl who is planning to hook up with someone and a young couple who give their tickets away and then trying to gain entry into the rave. There is a hotshot DJ who leeches the work of younger talent.

It is all shown in bright vibrant colours with lots of young beautiful women and plenty of texting. The music was supervised by Pete Tong and after a shaky opening when you might wonder if this film is for you, it actually settles down pretty well.

Being a young guy (22) I can relate very closely to this film. Since turning 18, I've had my far share of raves, and while watching XOXO, it made me want to get off my feet, go party, and have a good time. But looking at it from a film perspective, it felt like there was too much going on between the many different characters that all led up to a very minimal pay-off. Two characters specifically, the boyfriend and girlfriend, I felt could've been cut from the film entirely. They really didn't have much to do with the plot as a whole, and the creators could've used that to build more on the more centralized plot. The film had great acting and a good idea, but I personally felt that there could've been more. 5/10

This film tells the story of an aspiring DJ who plays for the first time in a major festival.

I love EDM to bits, and I have been looking forward to this film for a long time. The music is great, and the festival looks like what I imagine it to be. However, the story spends too much time meandering the back story before the festival. The characters are not that interesting either. I was quite bored in the first half, but the film did get better when the electronic music kicks in.

In an era where everyone loves music too much, talk about it, obsess about it, yet few actually get it. XOXO brilliantly captures all that. It brings to life spectacularly the 'fear' musicians face, where technology dictates music more and more by the hour, replacing talent.

In a fast paced chaos of materiels, music is the only 'real' left, that keeps us all going. Music is one thing which still is all about passion!

XOXO is deep for those who look for it!

Let me start by saying that I am a raver, a DJ, and a straight edge, meaning I don't drink, smoke, or do any sorts of drugs at these events. Just to give you a bit of perspective on where I'm coming from.

Personally, I really enjoyed this movie. It captured very well the many different aspects of festival culture, from the bro-tank crowd, to the slutty girls, to the people only there to take an extreme amount of drugs, to the people who come to enjoy the music and hardly if at all participate in the party scene. The chaos and bliss of walking around a massive, multi-staged arena of people who are just there to enjoy themselves in the best way they know how, dancing to the music that we all love. Even the shocking and thrilling experience of running into your best friend in the middle of a crowd, in a festival with 24,000 people in it, something that has actually happened to me, as unlikely as that sounds. The depiction of PLUR was a bit cheesy, not that there is really a non-cheesy way to portray that element. The film also captured a bit of DJ culture, and the constant struggle between the people who are in it for the music vs. the fame, which I appreciated, although that might not resonate so much with the general audience.

With a solid combination of outright, and background comedy (pay attention to side characters that are being talked over), and serious plot, this movie is a good example of what a 'dramedy' should be. Without spoiling anything, the plot has enough twists to keep you engaged, although it does grow a bit predictable as it goes. Some parts did seem a bit forced, plot-wise, but that's to be expected in film nowadays.

I would have liked if the film had more diversity in the music, as it was almost entirely main- stage house in the soundtrack, but to be fair, that is the only type of EDM that really works with general audiences, so I understand why they choose to stick so closely to the genre.

If you've never been to a festival, do not by any means form your opinion of what they are like on this movie, but if you have, sit back and enjoy, and let XOXO take you back to what is, for many people, the most surreal and magical few days of their entire lives.