Shoplifters of the World: Tribute to Alt-Rock Icons The Smiths Tender But Trite

By Kim Hughes

Rating: B

As a valentine to influential 80s alt-rockers The Smiths, Shoplifters of the World is unbeatable, propelled by original Smiths music along with archival footage of band interviews and performances, vintage posters, magazine covers, album sleeves and just about every other bit of era-specific ephemera you can name.

As an original film with a compelling narrative, Shoplifters of the World is on shakier ground, borrowing conceptually from Airheads, High Fidelity, and pretty much every jocks-versus-cool-kids, coming-of-age film in the canon, despite being very sweet and clear-eyed in its purpose.

It’s also fair to question whether those likely to be most invested in a coming-of-age story — namely, those actually coming of age — would be much interested in film pivoting on a band that spilt over 30 years ago and whose once-cool leader, Morrissey, is today seen as something of a loose canon.

Spilt into four chapters or “sides,” each named for a Smiths song and foreshadowing the tenor of action to follow (“Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now,” “I Want the One I Can’t Have” and so on), Shoplifters of the World unfolds in Denver in 1987 on the day it is announced that the iconic British band has split. The band’s demise becomes a catalyst for the main characters’ next steps.

There’s Cleo (Helena Howard), a Safeway clerk and daughter of an alcoholic mother who dreams of escaping to Paris. And there’s Dean (Boyhood's Ellar Coltrane), who works in a record store and dreams of dating Cleo despite her tendency to shoplift with impunity at Dean’s store. (“Shoplifters of the World Unite”…geddit?)

On the fateful night of the band’s breakup, a despondent Dean takes over the local radio station at gunpoint, forcing its surprisingly evolved (if Twisted Sister-championing) metalhead DJ to spin only Smiths records while Cleo seeks the proper party to send off Billy, also smitten, who is entering the armed forces the next day.

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

As non-stop Smiths songs blast through the FM dial, giving Denver’s hippest their own personal soundtrack, Cleo, Billy and sidekicks Sheila and Patrick pinball around town, confronting knuckle-draggers who simply don’t understand the exquisite pain of “How Soon is Now” and “The Boy with the Thorn in His Side.”

In the plus column, there’s some spot-on nods to the era: a crazed Siouxsie Sioux lookalike, abundant Polaroid cameras and cassette tapes, a Desperately Seeking Susan-styled Madonna wannabe on every corner, Wang Chung and Mister Mister mentions, and the above-mentioned TV clips and record jackets.

There’s also some sly humour between DJ Full Metal Mickey (Joe Manganiello, who also co-produces) and Dean, whose fundamental approach to music, it turns out, is more similar to Metal Mickey’s than either might have guessed, though the audience is well-aware of same much sooner. That’s because we’ve seen multiple versions of this movie before, for better or worse.

Shoplifters of the World. Written and Directed by Stephen Kijak. Starring Joe Manganiello, Ellar Coltrane, Helena Howard, Elena Kampouris, Nick Krause, and James Bloor. Available on demand April 2.