My Life With Morrissey

Any attempt to dramatise the life of a Morrissey fan will be difficult, and not just because a lot of his fans are sufficiently unusual to be stranger than anything a film maker could invent, as the documentary that comes with the film attests. Fans take Morrissey to their hearts to such a degree that it becomes personal and deeply subjective, so A Film About A Fictional Morrissey Fan is doomed as fans will protest that the portrayal of the fan is inaccurate.

So is this why I don't like the film? Am I just annoyed because I can't relate to the version of Morrissey fandom experienced by Jackie, the protagonist? Sadly, the reasons for my dismay are rather broader.

It's safe to say that most Morrissey fans are wooed by his words, his voice and the music that accompanies them. Yet Jackie's passion never touches on this at all, which is a major problem for the film. Maybe the trouble is that not one Smiths or Morrissey song features on the soundtrack - and it's easy to guess why: either the film makers couldn't get permission, or their budget couldn't cover the fee. Instead we get some truly awful American indie stuff from bands I've never heard of and hope never to again.. And this is a huge reason why the film doesn't ring true - the central silence is so deafening that it doesn't seem to be a film about Morrissey at all. In the musicless vacuum, Jackie's obsession is based on her Morrissey posters. Of course, Morrissey is visually iconic and Jackie's poster collection is pretty impressive (and possibly the best thing about the film) - but without the music and without Morrissey singing, the posters are stripped of significance. They're just pictures of Some Dude With A Big Chin.

And so, with only visual imagery to go on, Jackie's love of Morrissey becomes entirely sexual. Indeed, this isn't to say that your average Morrissey fan doesn't hear, as Evelyn Waugh said, the "thin bat's squeak of sexuality audible only to me" - but Morrissey's appeal is more than that. It's emotional, it's intellectual, it's psychological, it's Catherine Earnshaw's (asexual, amoral) desire for Heathcliff: "Nelly, I am Heathcliff: he's more myself than I am." It's transcendent. Some Morrissey fans even threaten violent acts if asked if they find Morrissey - horrors! - sexy. As one fan said, "It'd be like fancying Jesus." Which I suppose depends if you go for the whole beard 'n' sandals look.

A bit of background to My Life With Morrissey: it was directed by the animation director of that high-brow, culturally acclaimed literary and filmic masterpiece, Spongebob Squarepants, and his pals at Nickelodeon. Some of the scenes where Jackie is at work were filmed at Nickelodeon, which explains why, with the lurid orange tones and 60s Space Age shapes, it's like no office I've ever seen before. The story is based on the actor playing Jackie in fact meeting Morrissey in real life, and if I recall, most of the film's cast and crew were about to lose their jobs, and the film was made at weekends and after work on a tiny budget. Which, of course, makes me feel slightly mean for moaning about how This Isn't A Very Good Film... but... there's no avoiding it.... it just isn't.

The plot revolves around career girl and Morrissey fan Jackie, who starts the film dressing like a nun, and very unsportingly showers in her swimming costume (this was awkward: I was left wondering if a. is this meant to signify her Prelapsarian demureness?, or grumpy scenario b. did the actor playing Jackie refuse to bare all for the shower scene? In which case, why didn't they just cut the scene?). Her bedroom walls are plastered in Morrissey posters, and she tongue-kisses his photos (ok, I admit it - I kiss pictures of Morrissey too, but only a peck on the cheek that doesn't leave saliva trails). She is mocked for her love, and stops concentrating at work (her colleagues are clumsy stereotyped caricatures of Evil Office Types: The Maker of Impossible Demands, The Bullying Blonde Bimbos, etc.), as her mind is always on Morrissey. Living in LA, she compulsively visits all the sites Morrissey has been known to frequent - she waffles on and on about the Cat & Fiddle pub, but never actually goes, presumably because the film makers were worried that Morrissey might actually be there and set his retired Mexican boxer bodyguard, Ramon*, on them. No wonder the poor bloke moved to Rome.

Then, one night, Jackie finally meets Morrissey, having been tipped off by a friend that he was seen in the car park of some kind of American fast food emporium. Jackie finds a half-eaten "tofu dog" by a wheelie bin and, convinced that it's Morrissey's discarded tea, proceeds to... ahem... fellate it. At this moment, Morrissey appears - played with embarrassment by dear ol' Jose Maldonado of The Sweet & Tender Hooligans (Jose's a bit shy about this role and the only reason I can think of for his being in the film is that he's too kind to say no). Morrissey kindly gives Jackie a lift home and, when she flashes her boobs at him (which earlier she'd been too shy to reveal in the shower), he zips away at speed in a cloud of dust.

Now comes Jackie's plunge into madness. She dresses sluttier by the day, is convinced she'll marry Morrissey, keeps revisiting the car park and ends up being raped by schoolgirls, causes chaos at work, sticks a picture of Morrissey's face to her inflatable sex doll... you get the general idea. In fact, her insanity spiral is reminiscent of Jimmy's in Quadrophenia, which may explain why the dvd cover has a mod target and Who-style lettering. Unless it's because, for some lost-in-transatlantic-translation reason, targets represent British alternative music: your average mod doesn't like Morrissey for the paltry crime of having a quiff.

And the trouble is that, without the music, Jackie's obsession doesn't really seem to be about Morrissey at all - it could have been about anyone: Michael Jackson or even a pop star that the writers, had they any imagination, could have invented, based on Morrissey. But maybe they felt that they'd have an automatic audience with the film being ostensibly about "a Morrissey fan gone wrong". For the Morrissey fan who watches this film because of its title, it only provides an empty stomach feeling and the disappointing odour of a missed opportunity. It fails even to scrape the surface of what makes most people a Morrissey fan.

That's not my only grumble (what a surprise). There was a rather nasty whiff of homophobia in this film, with the lesbian rape scene (which also features a girl in a wheelchair - which made me wonder if someone had come up with a thoroughly bizarre interpretation of "November Spawned a Monster"), and by the frequent cry of "I thought Morrissey was gay!" from Jackie's colleagues, confused by her insistence that she's going to marry him (without even a sly, ironic nudge at "Will Never Marry").

Then there's the production values. While of course it'd be unfair to expect a masterpiece from such a low budget, made-in-our-spare-time film, there are shots which just don't work, scenes that go nowhere, a pretty rubbish script, acting like a primary school nativity play, and a pace which could be outstripped by a bronchial tortoise wearing lead-lined plimsolls. It failed to engage me, but managed to repulse me.

Real Life With Morrissey

The dvd extras include a documentary, Real Life With Morrissey, which makes the film it accompanies redundant. It was genuinely interesting to look inside The Knitting Factory and meet the LA Moz fans, and see what goes on at The Smiths convention there - which seemed far more fun than the dry academic convention that Britain managed to put together. And, as a Morrissey fan in Britain, seeing the devotion of my US counterparts was intriguing: whereas British fans love the dear old grumps with a spoonful of irony, US fans genuflect devotedly before The Mozfather's pained, holy image as if, save for the aforementioned beard 'n' sandals, he is in fact Jesus.

Sadly, there's a rather spiteful tone to this documentary, where Morrissey fans are paraded as weirdos to be wondered at, like the eighteenth century visits made to the Bedlam Lunatic Asylum to gawp at the crazies for a fun day out for all the family. Take for example the portrayal of Abrahan, a well-known Morrissey fan who has met The Man Himself twice and has a sweet and sincere website showing the momentous occasions. Evidently not bonkers enough for the documentary makers, Abrahan's interview is edited in such a way that he seems obsessed with the noise made by his Volvo's engine and can move his head jerkily like Max Headroom.

It seems a bit mean of the film makers, really - the fans let them in, only to be made to look unhinged. Doubtlessly someone, someday will make a very good film about Being A Morrissey Fan: the material's certainly there. Something done 'in the style of' Morrissey's beloved late 50's/early 60's Kitchen Sink films would work really well. But it needs to be made with the same fervour and fondness of the fans, not with this film's patronising sneer.

*Footnote: I invented Ramon as a joke but, for a brief period in 2004, he gained legendary status equal to that of Julia Riley.

Click here to visit Abrahan's website.

Click here to visit the My Life With Morrissey website, where the stills used in this review are from.

Click here to read an interview with Jose Maldonado.