Jonathan Ogilvie is the New Zealand film-maker who made the gangster drama The Tender Hook (2008) and also Lone Wolf (2021), a postmodern spin on Conrad’s The Secret Agent. Now he hits a lighter, gentler and much more personal note in this coming-of-age comedy, which opens the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) – a nostalgiafest romance from the 70s post-punk era about a kid in New Zealand mooching around in his uncool school uniform, hanging out in the local record shop (which still has its prog-era name of Middle Earth Records) and dreaming of starting a punk band called the Daleks – though wondering if just Daleks sounds cooler — and obsessing about an unattainably sexy girl who sneers at him.
It will have all of us of a certain age smiling along to its madeleines: the musical cues, stereo music centres and album covers. There is however something disconcerting about a sudden, dramatic revelation at the very end, with no succeeding resolution scene, followed by a certain acknowledgement in the credits once the screen has faded to black, which appears to confirm the strongly autobiographical nature of all this, but which is not explained or developed further. It feels a bit truncated. But there’s been much entertainment until this point.
Our teen wannabe guitar hero is Angus, played by Ed Oxenbould, who I last saw as a child performer in the Australian film Paper Planes. His brother Rory is away in London, and his mum has apparently had a kind of midlife crisis and has departed, leaving Angus alone with his morose, but interestingly droll dad Gordon, nicely played by that veteran New Zealand actor Marton Csokas. Angus is dazzled by haughty and super-glam Holly (Roxie Mohebbi) who claims to be a Londoner; in fact a musically talented woman who works in the chemist might be a better friend to him – Kirsten, played by the Auckland singer-songwriter Benee.
Oxenbould’s face is itself just right for this part: perpetually sporting a kind of uneasy half-smile, partly scared and baffled by everything that’s happening to him, partly excited, partly trying to display a super-cool ironic detachment from it all (Joe Thomas, from TV’s Inbetweeners and Fresh Meat, has a very similar expression.) It’s the kind of face that infuriates stern teachers and parents without meaning to, and is very bad at concealing inner hurt.
There are some intriguingly bizarre moments: especially when Angus is allowed to borrow a bass guitar for his first gig from someone who stipulates that he be allowed to “photograph” Angus in exchange for the loan, an event which is more embarrassing than Angus, or the audience, anticipated. Again, this has surely to be autobiographical; the weird interlude isn’t followed up, but then that’s part of the chaotic strangeness of real life.
It’s a film which can’t quite absorb the intense seriousness of its final moments, but a sweet-natured entertainment nonetheless.
• International Film Festival Rotterdam ends 4 February
