Movies based on the rave and dance music scene are always a hit or miss, and while these movies aren’t solely targeted towards club goers, they generally get the stereotypical ideas of what an underground dance event is like. Two movies that delve into the rave theme are the aptly titled Groove and We are your Friends. Separated by 15 years, each movie does a great job representing it’s own generation and viewpoints, though this does not necessarily mean it’s a good thing.
If Groove’s story line were to be written into a short summary, the basic jist of it would be that a group of strangers lives are intertwined and enhanced due to their attendance of an underground rave held in San Francisco.
On the surface it may seem cliche, but Groove did a wonderful job of representing how the actual underground rave culture was like during the late 90s era. Though it may be thought of as cliche characteristics, almost every type of party kid could be seen in the movie. You had your candy kids with their bright floppy clown pants as the bro raver mentions during one scene, the experienced party girl who teaches and takes care of the silicon valley nerd turned newbie raver, the adorable gay couple that doesn’t make it to the event due to their bickering, and much much more. Each character adds their own “Groove” to the movie, from the promoter dealing with the wise cop played by Nick Offerman, to the inexperienced DJ that trainwrecks his first set.
Though the plot of Groove may seem a bit stale at some points, every scene encapsulated what it really felt like to be a raver during that era. The movie poster is truly a symbol of what the rave scene was like during its peak, before it became the cash cow of today. Speaking of…
If I were to summarize “We are your Friends” in a word, the only thing I could come up with is “128”, which seems to be the amount of minutes that was put into creating the plot. The movie titled is based off of the song produced by Justice, and doesn’t even seem to really represent the movie very well. Sure the main character played by Zac Efron has a group of friends, but in hindsight the movie should have been renamed “128” since the generic bpm is constantly thrown down the audience’s throats while the rest of the plot is a convoluted mess. Let’s not even go into the laugh fest of creating a track using recorded samples off of a cheap microphone and ending with the cringe worthy “Are we ever gonna be better than this?” line towards the end of the movie. No Zac this movie will never be better than anything I have watched in my 36 years of breathing.
One highlight is that the movie does represent the current EDM Festival scene, in that one of the main points mentioned throughout the movie is how easy it is to make it big with one musical hit. And sadly this is true. In a world of ghost producers and faked DJ sets, one only has to have connections and the right looks to make it big in the million dollar festival scene.
While both movies reflect their respective eras, Groove is the only movie out of the two which actually gets the nod of approval. We are your friends was just an overall mess of a movie that tried to capitalize on the EDM craze and in my opinion failed miserably.