A chronicle of Terri Hooley’s life, a record-store owner instrumental in developing Belfast’s punk-rock scene.
How come every movie about British music comes telling stories about bands from London, Liverpool, or Manchester? What about Ireland?
A vibrant, hilarious and inspirational biopic of Terri Hooley, Belfast’s “Godfather of Punk,” whose upstart record shop and music label Good Vibrations became the hub of the city’s nascent ’70s punk scene and a voice of resistance to the sectarian violence of the Troubles.
As the bloody sectarian violence of the Troubles tears apart 1970s Belfast, fanatical music lover Terri Hooley (Richard Dormer) stages his own kind of protest: he opens a record shop on the most bombed half-mile stretch of road in all of Europe and quixotically dubs it Good Vibrations. Discovering a compelling voice of resistance in the city’s nascent underground punk scene, Hooley starts an indie record label and becomes the unlikely ringleader of a band of young musical rebels who set out to create a new community free of the decades-old hatreds that are splitting their city apart.
A vibrant biopic of Belfast’s real-life Godfather of Punk, gets six popcorns and goes into the Movie Vault. Brilliant recommendation from Draí, which you might remember from her Lost And Found.
_ When I look out at youse all gathered here, it confirms something I’ve always felt. When it comes to punk, New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!_
