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"Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie" is one that I spent almost a year missing. I skipped it when I was at TIFF last year, I missed its brief run when it was in cinemas this year, and I missed a screener that was sent to me. But now that Matt Johnson's comedy-adventure-time-travel-prankster-musical-buddy movie is streaming on Hulu, I have seen it, and it is genuinely one of the funniest and most clever movies of the year.
Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol play heightened versions of themselves: best friends who have been trying for years to play at the famed Toronto nightclub, The Rivoli, but always with a scheme that Matt cooks up, rather than simply calling the venue and trying to book it. When Matt's most recent scheme of skydiving off of the CN Tower into Rogers Center comes up short, he decides that they need to invent a time machine to go back and try it again. But when his Orbitz-powered RV time machine somehow works, it creates a rift not only in time, but in their friendship.
There is so much going on in "Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie" that it should never work. And yet it somehow absolutely does. Granted, some of that is based on my deep love of "Back to the Future," which plays prominently in the second half of the film, but that alone wouldn't be enough to rocket this to the top of my favorite movies of the year. Instead, what really makes this film work is its willingness to tell a really lovely story about how friendship can grow and change over time.
In addition to this being a genuinely funny movie, Johnson also does some really impressive filmmaking in "NTBTSTM." When Matt and Jay go back to 2008, he uses archival footage from their YouTube episodes to recreate them in the past. So rather than including questionable de-aging CGI, he simply cuts old footage of them into this movie, so we're actually seeing Matt and Jay in 2008. It's a really cool way to pull this off.
I think it's also important to mention the music. Because there is a lot of "Back to the Future" imagery in it, it is begging for that epic Alan Silvestri score. McCarrol writes a fantastic parody of that score that gives the final act an absolutely brilliant burst of energy and whimsy, especially during a section of the movie where things get a little dark. For a band that doesn't have any actual songs, McCarrol's riffs are remarkably catchy.
For all of the absurdity that exists in "Nirvanna The Band The Show The Musical," it resonates because it has a kind heart at its center. For all of the absurdity that occurs, this film is ultimately about the compromises we make to maintain long-term friendships, even as we grow and change. It is also about the past tense of skydiving, but mostly the friendship thing.
Alise Chaffins is a freelance and Tomatometer-approved film critic.