Groove (2000)
Directed by: Greg Harrison
Written by: Greg Harrison
Starring: Chris Ferreira, Elizabeth Sun, Mackenzie Firgens
On Friday, a single e-mail blips through the internet. The word spreads quickly through San Francisco: the party is on. Saturday evening, two hundred people secretly converge at an abandoned San Francisco warehouse. One of these people is David Turner is a frustrated writer who is wasting his talent doing instruction manuals for a computer company. That night, his brother Colin invites him to the party. Colin has a surprise for his girlfriend Harmony Stitts, and he wants David there. David reluctantly agrees to go despite having had no experience of the race scene and not knowing at all what he has let himself in for. Arriving at the party, David feels incredibly out of place, until he takes his first ecstasy pill………
For my money the greatest ‘rave’ film [and that includes Human Traffic, though I rate that highly too], Groove is one of those films that is doomed to be appreciated and understood by only a certain section of society, but if you consider yourself one of those strange creatures called ‘ravers’, or used to be one, then you will probably love it. This critic pleads guilty! For those who used to rave, this film is the best flashback you’ll ever get, the best way to relive the experience you had of your first party, when you first discovered a wonderful new world and felt it was life-changing. For those who currently rave, it will make you want to go out and find a party NOW. For those who have never raved, the film brilliantly shows the sight and sounds of a rave while trying to be like a rave itself through careful pacing and use of music. The varied characters are sketched just enough and the heart of the film, the bond between dorky novice David and the partied-out girl he encounters, is very sweet, though the film’s naive, idealistic view of rave culture will leave some with as bad a taste in their mouth as a dodgy pill. The lengthy scenes of people dancing will bore many, and the appearance by a certain superstar DJ at the end, not to mention his ‘acting’, has been rightly criticised for being unrealistic, though comments about the supposed absurdity of the party starting up again after it has been shut down are wrong in my view: I certainly experienced it! In any case, I love Groove the way it is and it always gets my adrenalin juices flowing, in fact writing about it makes me want to watch it all over again. As one character says: “well, bring on the love”!
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