Neil book's was a tender, beautiful, sincere cry from the heart. A love song to and a requiem for pop music.
And this film is the result? Shame!
I don't know what the writers were going for, but they missed the mark by a country mile. What we get instead is 2-hours of warmed over rock movie tropes and every "Stage-Oirish" cliche in the book.
Two hours of my life I will never get back. Save yourself the bother and read Neil's gorgeous heartbreaker of a book.
Now that I think about it, there was some really interesting stuff in the book about Neil growing up in 1970s Ireland where punk was this strange thing from England and people were getting swept along it.
Then it goes darker to the point where he has so many missed attempts while watching Bono ascend. The film is just light and fluffy in comparison.
Worst of all is the gangster sub plot thrown in for no reason.
My point exactly. For such a profound and rich book, this resulting film mess is a criminal offense. There was a way to make a film that could be funny, tender and affecting. It's about teenage dreaming, angst and ambition thwarted.
But no, what we get is "The Commitments" redux with a stupid Benny Hill gangster plot thrown in.
Given the source material, Clement and LeFrenais have a whole lot to answer for.
Poor old Neil McCormick. To have written such a gorgeous book, and this film be the result?
Man deserves a consolation oscar for WORST butchering of a beautiful book.
Agreed, the movie is very different from the book. But you should check out what Neil had to say about it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/8376077/Neil-M cCormick-on-Killing-Bono.html
Film is a very different medium to the written word. Internal voices become dialogue, metaphor becomes action, and with each rewrite it became more detached from my life as I remembered it ...
We all fictionalise ourselves in the process of creating a story out of the raw materials of our life ... So, in a sense, I created a version of myself to suit my book, emphasising the comical tales of plucky failure ... Now, someone has created an alternative version, that threatens to become more widely accepted as the truth. Film embeds itself visually in your mind, taking on the quality of memory. To me, the film is a kind of riff on the themes of my book, my life in a parallel universe, where I still don’t get to be a rock star, but I do get the best lines.
I love the movie and the book!!
share