24 hour party people is a film that is very close to my dearest memories. Michael Winterbottom’s post-modern, half-truths, half-myths film feels like the intertwining of two different stories: the rise and fall of Joy Division and their gloomy music and the rise and fall of Happy Mondays and their drug-fuelled Madchester defining sound.

A movie I saw at the Nottingham Savoy a few weeks after arriving, the whole story blew my mind. I had an inkling of Joy Division thanks to several covers (Dead Souls by Nine Inch Nails is fave) but I never had an idea of how emblematic they were until I watched the film. It’s cool that the remark about Ian Curtis not been this dark personality conveyed by the myth of his music, but a guy who had some serious doubts about himself while still having a sense of humour. Winterbottom’s casting of Sean Harris (seen later as a supervillain in Mission Impossible) is perfect, just matched by Anton Corbjin’s casting of Sam Riley.

The Happy Mondays section of the film never quite matches the intensity of the first half, but it’s commented on by the constant camera breaking of Steve Coogan. The self-aggrandising myth of Madchester blows things out of proportion, just matching the Mondays’ own sense of irreverence. Danny Cunningham’s portrayal of Shaun Ryder almost feels like something out of Bottom, with plenty of violence and slapstick. However, there is an understated sadness on the meteoric fall of Happy Mondays and how they took Factory Records down with them.

Coogan’s Tony Wilson constantly hyping up his bands is a memorable part of the flick. His off-kilter comparison with W.B. Yeats grows on you, especially when the morbidly simplistic lyrics of a track like Do it better strangely earworm themselves into your soul.

I worked my way through the Happy Mondays’ catalogue thanks to this film and the music library at the University of Nottingham. I can spot the moment the drugs did the talking and singing and kinda lament they lost themselves into a K-Hole. But then again, they wouldn’t be a mythical band if they hadn’t destroyed themselves.

Double double good indeed.

-Sam J. Valdés López