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The popularity of the British-Irish boy band One Direction has been fuelled largely by extraordinarily active Twitter fans, mostly tween and teenage girls. But seeing One Direction: This Is Us is a chance to experience that high-pitched hysteria viscerally as the girls in the theatre call out for their favourite band members. Affections seem equally divided, except for Harry Styles, the obvious heart-throb, who resembles a less gnomish Mick Jagger.
Though the 3D effects in this concert film directed by Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) are barely noticed, its enhanced, real-life surround sound can be alternately terrifying and a little thrilling.
The film contains enough gratuitous naked torsos that it is sure to satisfy those fans. But is it of interest to anyone else? It is a chance to ponder just why these five “boys,” who range from 19 to 21, are pegged as the new Justin Biebers. Unlike Bieber, they don’t seem to be musical prodigies. Only one plays an instrument onstage, and none of them dance well.
Spurlock centres the film on performances that are not particularly riveting, as the guys slouch over microphones singing to girls in the crowds, and directly to the camera, about how they love their fans and think they’re perfect despite their stomachs and thighs. “They say what we want to hear and what no one says to us,” one fan says.
The scale of the group’s intense following has been compared to Beatlemania, though it might be more accurate to liken One Direction to a tossed salad of 1960s British Invasion bands. It’s as if Jagger and Ringo Starr had been in Herman’s Hermits.
The backstage performances, rather than those onstage, make the film watchable. Spurlock hopes to get across that, unlike past prefab boy bands, these are five very different characters who happen to be in a group. And that’s the truth: The members were put together on the The X Factor three years ago after each auditioned individually. (Simon Cowell, a judge on that show, is a producer of this film.) In a previous era, they might have been in rival bands of different styles. Instead, their popularity seems reflective of certain magpie tendencies today: an indiscriminate and imitative mixing of influences from the Backstreet Boys to classic rock, a borrowing of whatever is useful.
With a group so evidently versed in the visuals of rock history, it’s a shame that a filmmaker wasn’t hired who would pay homage to classic pop films instead of offering a satisfactory paid promotional. In the end credits — Richard Lester-style scenes of the boys in costumes doing pranks — we see how this film might have been more successful: as an obvious fiction starring these appealing personalities rather than a tame and somewhat fake documentary.
One direction: this is us (U/A)
Director: Morgan Spurlock Cast: Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson Running time: 92 minutes
This is Us is a straightforward account of the group’s three-year rise to fame
When I first heard that Morgan Spurlock, the documentarian, was making a film about One Direction, I assumed that he would be listening to nothing but the boy band’s music for 30 days to see if it would induce heart failure. In his 2004 film Super Size Me, Spurlock claimed that eating only food from McDonalds left him 1st 10lbs heavier, and suffering from vomiting, liver disease, mood swings and sexual dysfunction. This latest stunt would surely be enough to finish him off.
Well, not quite. One Direction: This Is Us is a straightforward account of the group’s three-year rise to fame, culminating in two sold-out nights at the 50,000-capacity Foro Sol arena in Mexico City. Even readers who are unfamiliar with the work of Harry Styles, Zayn Malik et al may still be aware that the five-piece was constructed during the seventh series of The X Factor: they finished in third place, but were signed to Simon Cowell’s record label anyway. Cowell pops up towards the start of the film to marvel, with an admirably straight face, at their entirely organic rise to stardom.
The man in charge of this film is plainly Cowell himself, whose influence hangs over the picture like the smell of a leaky bin bag. One Direction: This Is Us is constructed like an episode of The X Factor, with 3D performances from their Take Me Home concert tour (96 arena dates down and still rumbling onwards) broken up by ersatz candid footage.
There are pre-gig hijinks and post-gig heart-to-hearts, all of which the boys conduct in an at least partial state of undress. Even a visit to the recording studio is conducted sans trousers. Unusually, Cowell has missed a trick here: imagine the scope for product placement if he’d used the film to launch a range of One Direction-themed underpants. Virtually the only part of the film in which the boys aren’t wandering around in their underwear is a brief interlude in which Louis Tomlinson visits his great-grandmother.
What of the music? Well, they rattle through all the hits, like Kiss You, Rock Me and I Would: songs that leave you pining for the harmonic complexity and lyrical daring of Justin Bieber. During a cover of Teenage Dirtbag, by the American rock group Wheatus, Spurlock deploys the film’s one original idea, flash-freezing the boys at the end of each line in natty Street Fighter poses. Other numbers are comparatively lacking in panache: in Little Things, the band sings passive-aggressive twaddle like You still have to squeeze into your jeans, but you’re perfect to me while draped over a girder.
Do the group’s fans feel disappointed by these lyrics? More to the point, have they ever actually heard them? Girls screaming at boy band concerts is nothing new, but there is a strange and penetrating new quality to the noise here that calls to mind those things in the Lord of the Rings films that chase after Frodo on horseback.
The One Direction fanbase is a famously passionate bunch, and throughout the film the band talks about them often, in a tone that occasionally borders on panicky. “We just have to keep thanking the fans for everything they’ve done for us,” says Niall Horan during a car journey, while nervously glancing out of the window. An odd moment occurs during a shopping trip in Amsterdam when the boys visit a sportswear shop, and within minutes are hemmed in by a shuffling, groaning horde worthy of Dawn of the Dead.
This Is Us has been made with these fans in mind, and there’s nothing like a guaranteed profit to stifle creativity. There is a Morrissey concert film coming out later this week that makes One Direction: This Is Us look like Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz. (Scorsese has an unexpected cameo here, visiting the band backstage with his 13-year-old daughter Francesca.)
But just imagine what a One Direction version of The Last Waltz might have looked like — or what Danny Boyle could have done with these five, given a semi-respectable budget and a brief from Cowell to make “the new A Hard Day’s Night”. The money would roll in regardless, so why not have fun too?
Here’s t2’s favourite 1d songs. What’s yours? Tell t2@abp.in
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Up All Night
The title song from their 2011 debut album is remembered for its Katy Perry reference: “Katy Perry’s on replay/ She’s on replay/ DJ got the floor to shake, the floor to shake/ People going all the way/ Yeah, all the way/ I’m still wide awake.” Why Katy Perry? Perhaps the song’s co-writer Matt Squire has a role to play. He co-produced the rock mix of Katy’s hit song, I Kissed A Girl.
Last First Kiss
Liam Payne, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson contributed to the songwriting process to deliver this gem with an acoustic feel. This is reportedly one of Niall Horan’s favourite songs. And what kind of girl does Niall prefer? He recently said: “[I want a girl who] preferably plays the guitar or something. Girls who play instruments are very attractive and very cool, so I wouldn’t mind that.”
What Makes You Beautiful
This is where it all started. The debut single from their debut album, Up All Night (2011), is an intoxicating number, which was “meant” to be a hit. Harry Styles told MTV News: “I think for us we wanted to release something that wasn’t cheesy but it was fun. It kind of represented us, I think it took us a while to find it but I think we found the right song.”
Kiss You
Upbeat with a slight electronic twist makes this a cool track. Equally cool was the video that accompanied the song –– the guys do an Elvis Presley routine from Jailhouse Rock. And the song’s most memorable line: “If you don’t wanna, take it slow/ And you just wanna, take me home/ Baby say yeah.”
Live While We’re Young
Another song to get those happy feet moving, it captures the spirit of 1D. Harry Styles in a 2012 interview said the song is about “having fun, not taking life too seriously… just enjoying yourself. We’re working a lot, so when we’re not, it’s nice to have fun and enjoy yourself. It’s important.”
More Than This
Written by Jamie Scott, whose music is inspired by Cat Stevens, it’s become the song about unrequited love among teenagers: “When he opens his arms and holds you close tonight/ It just won’t feel right/ ’Cause I can love you more than this.”
Little Things
The second single from their second album, Take Me Home (2012), was written by none other than Grammy-nominated singer-lyricist Ed Sheeran and singer Fiona Bevan. 1D went acoustic and they did justice to this ballad. It contains one of Harry Styles’s favourite lines: “I know you’ve never loved/ The sound of your voice on tape/ You never want/ To know how much you weigh/ You still have to squeeze into your jeans/ But you’re perfect to me.”
