If you watch just one film this weekend, make it Dublin Oldschool, the big screen version of Emmet Kirwan’s sesh and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll yarn that’s the subject of a major feature in the new Hot Press Best of Dublin special.
“I played three characters on stage and Ian Lloyd Anderson, who’s Daniel, played 29!” Kirwan tells us. “The theatre piece goes through space and time to the actual molten depth of the universe. Joe pushes himself into these cosmic realms, which in the film have become flashbacks.”
While Daniel and Emmet’s Jason are both composites, a lot of the other characters are people Emmet has partied with in the past.
“Yeah, there really was a guy who fell through the wall at a party and left a gaping hole in it, and a DJ, English Tom, who ran a night called Hospital who went to B&Q when it opened and got the plaster and tools needed to fix it.”
Supervised by Johnny Moy, the banging soundtrack mixes classics from the likes of Orbital, Death In Vegas and The Chemical Brothers with tunes from such new-ish kids on the rave block as Mango and MathMan.
“Somebody said to me recently, ‘Are raves back?’ and I said, ‘Mate, raves never stopped!’ Just because you hit whatever age and stopped going out doesn’t mean that kids aren’t making their own parties.’”
The premise of the film is, of course, a serious one with Jason and Daniel’s respective ketamine and heroin problems the primary reason for its existence.
For once, I’ll have to disagree with my Hot Press film reviewer colleague, Roe McDermott, who feels the female characters are somewhat underdeveloped.
Along with a fine turn from Sarah Greene who’s an old pal of Kirwan’s, many a scene is stolen by Seána Kerslake who plays Jason’s off but briefly back on love interest, Gemma.
Although not averse to popping the odd pill herself, it’s Gemma who refuses to put up with Jason’s pharmaceutically-inclined bullshit, and challenges his macho Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat existence. Without her, Dublin Oldschool wouldn’t be half the film it is.