As a (non) retired clubber who lived through the club life and after parties of Oldschool Dublin, I was expecting something more profoundly music based. Instead it focuses rather more deeply on the drug side.
The timeline was puzzling and I couldn't really nail down "when" the events we're watching unfold. The clothes were all over the place. The cars were old but in rundown neighbourhoods. The music spanned decades. It could be conceivably set any time between 2008 and 2018 as it really didn't show its hand, bar a relatively modern dropped smart phone, which you see for two seconds. Not that it hugely matters as it could purposely have been set at any time over the previous 25 years.
Perhaps all too personally aware of its litany of settings, small club, large club, house party, illegal rave. The scenes enacted therein, were for me, inconsistent. I'm not totally convinced the writer(s)/director were so familiar either, but it would comfortably pass for many.
The more adroit aspect, was the back street world of drug use. The disclaimer being, I'm much less au fait with that world. Perhaps my drug equivalent would argue the opposite?
The movie is quite light on plot. Jason ((writer) Emmet Kirwan) flits between clubs and housing scoring casual drugs with his ensemble of misfit friends and acquaintances. There is a love interest with an ex, which all the while feels vague and random.
Jason scrounges about, in various states of consciousness. This enables a frequently revisited device, whereby when "zoned out" he remembers himself and his brother Daniel as kids in their 80's house.
These scenes are well realised and give texture to the scenes with his long estranged, college educated, now junkie brother, with whom he is reacquainted. They are often very funny, amid intensity. The anguish and guilt of their relationship and shared past is palpable. The scenes are numerous and punctuate at regular intervals. They are also head and shoulders above anything else in this film. They are deserving of better and likely represent why the play this movie is based on garnered such praise. The budget, albeit meagre and probable demands of celluloid, have diluted 20 minutes of cumulative excellence, with faux club fluff and nonsense.
I felt deceived by the make up of this movie, but Emmet (Jason) when interacting with the outstanding Ian Lloyd Anderson (Daniel) do provide a superior cautionary tale of how a dabbler is one weekend from becoming a junkie and helped make up for my disappointment.
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