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Nirvanna Plays the Rivoli

It is astonishing to me that Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie has taken off so much as a near-instant cult movie hit. Not because it is a scrappy independent film with no notable stars. Not because it is produced with a seemingly DIY crudeness. Not even because it plays with time travel as a concept and is ensconced in 80s movie throwbacks -particularly Back to the Future. But because of an aspect to the movie that is best crystallized in a moment where Matt (Matt Johnson) confirms he is in the year 2008 by a series of references that culminates in him seeing a billboard advertising Q with Jian Ghomeshi. I’m astonished that Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie has taken off so much because it is so extremely Canadian.
The Ghomeshi joke is one of at least a handful in this film that I have to believe goes over every American’s head. Hell, there are even a couple jokes specific to Toronto in the film that I didn’t catch. But I can definitely comprehend the other ways this very strange movie has broken through, from its very particular and charming humour to its compelling technical feats that it openly invites its audience to marvel at. Nirvanna the Band the Show has periodically existed in various forms over nearly twenty years, but it has always involved a certain degree of guerrilla filmmaking and wild on-location stunts performed without permits. That certainly is there in spades in this film (which thankfully does not require its audience to have watched either the web or television series), but it comes wrapped within a complicated though entertaining and intentionally dumb feature-worthy plot.
Opening in 2008 with a clip literally from 2008, the film introduces Matt and Jay (Jay McCarrol),  a pair of twenty-something friends in Toronto starting a band called Nirvanna the Band (completely unrelated to the real Nirvana band) with the goal to play a show at the Rivoli, a modestly popular local club. They determine that success is right around the corner …and yet seventeen years later they still live in the same townhouse and have not gotten the gig in spite of many hair-brained schemes thought up by Matt in pursuit of this one meagre dream. After their latest endeavour fails, involving skydiving off the CN Tower into the SkyDome during a Blue Jays game, a weary and disillusioned Jay secretly books a gig in Ottawa on his own. Meanwhile, Matt’s new plan involves faking being time travelers, yet the device he sets up in their RV to sell the illusion actually works. Both he and Jay are indeed sent back to 2008 and must find a way home without disturbing their timeline.
Obviously this is a very bonkers premise and the plot turns on a few unexpected dimes that are best not revealed, and that is due to the very deliberately spontaneous production. A mockumentary film that occasionally breaks the fourth wall, any scenes not set in either the RV or Matt and Jay's apartment are indeed shot discreetly in real spaces, the reactions of the people they come into contact with very much driving the scene, as in the case of a Canadian Tire employee or a Brazilian tourist at the CN Tower. Moreover, several sequences in the movie are really just astounding to conceptualize the practicality of their construction. And it is a big part of the movie's fun. It is unbelievable for instance to see a shot of Matt gearing up for the EdgeWalk while flashing wire cutters at the camera he somehow snuck past security, to say nothing of the beat where he appears to push Jay off the observation deck before jumping himself in full view of the guide and other patrons. The logistics of setting up scenes in the downtown in the latter parts of the movie or co-opting news footage (and in one sequence their own capture of a developing media circus) to fit the requirements of their storytelling are mind-boggling. And then there are smaller but legally substantial things involving the use of footage from other movies and extensive quoting of Alan Silvestri's soundtrack to the Back to the Future films. The film is very much designed to impress its audience with these feats, get them thinking intently about those technical sides of filmmaking often overlooked. And it is all genuinely engrossing.
It is also all genuinely funny. Johnson and McCarrol's double-act is incredibly finely-tuned (naturally so, the pair are lifelong friends), Jay's healthy scepticism and mischievous curiosity bouncing perfectly off of Matt's wild energy, adolescent enthusiasm and confidence. A lot of their dialogue together has the rhythm and spontaneity of improvisation, which it almost certainly is for things like the band's songs (in which Jay will play the piano while Matt riffs), yet there is a real charm to it which comes from the very DIY mockumentary style that it is presented in. Outside of the stunts a lot of the film is almost shot like a home movie -the web series origins are brazenly apparent. And yet they have a fully-formed sensibility that is quite sharp and clever. Matt's references and turns of phrase are inspired, the occasional fourth-wall breaks have an innocence to them (unlike the highly-calculated ones of Deadpool), and the camera know how to capture a good expression or particular line delivery tinged with a bit of awkwardness. Moreover, the premise and the jokes that spill out of it are frequently hilarious. The first big 2008 gag (set in a movie theatre) is one of the funniest movie jokes in a while, and though Jay is generally the straight man of the pair, the absurd comic beats around his character in the latter half are tremendously executed. 
And of course a lot of it plays in the parody zone of Back to the Future and other time travel films. But this movie employs very unique time travel effects. Utilizing old cameras, Johnson and his editors pull off a series of technical tricks to capture the distinct visual aesthetic of 2008 video -an eminently more immersive device than merely fashion and technology. More impressively, present-day Matt and Joel are organically integrated into old footage from that time that they shot but never used, and through a script reverse-engineered from that footage manage to interact with their former selves in an amusingly intricate way.
The effect of this is remarkable, but the other implicit effect is even stronger. The old footage illustrates both in-universe and metatextually how long this project has been going on and the importance of the friendship between both the real Johnson and McCarrol and the fictional Matt and Jay. That is ultimately the thematic core of the movie -it’s central conflict comes about as an emotional response to an erosion of that friendship, and restoring it becomes a centrepiece of the resolution. Perhaps it is a bit cynical in-universe, Jay isn’t quite as attached or sincere in his motivations as he might be -though at the same time it is clear that while his career ambitions are unfulfilled, his life with Matt is one of constant spontaneity and excitement, and he does recognize some value in that. But more so the movie is a testament to the real-life friendship beyond the camera and the creative impulses it inspires. There is so much affection from Johnson and McCarrol to the material and to each other that permeates through and you can’t help but be charmed by it.
That can be said overall though for Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie -a deeply strange and distinct but wholesome comedy. And in a year where we’re seeing the ascension of online creators to the moviemaking space, from Markiplier to Curry Barker to Kane Parsons, this is the movie that really seems to, in sensibility and aesthetic, bridge the gap most emphatically -in spite of the fact that Johnson has been in the professional film space for a while now. This movie basically exists because a third season of the show was canceled and BlackBerry was successful enough (and outside of Canada) to give Johnson the capacity to make it. It is a little miracle of a film. All films perhaps are miracles, but this one wears it on its sleeve more tangibly than most.

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