I say this with some hesitation, but I found the general tone of the movie to be fun and entertaining instead of self-serious and self-important. The memory of the Justin Bieber and Katy Perry films of years past, which I saw for RESEARCH PURPOSES, is of vague dissatisfaction. Here’s where I think those films fail where this one succeeds. Both those movies focus on the way these performers brighten up the lives of their fans. They both talk about the inspiration people draw from the two stars, highlighting their humble beginnings and chronicling their rise to fame, and then showing them up on stage, telling fans to follow their dreams, essentially saying, “You, too, could be up here!” This Is Us tells the story from the group’s perspective, and so the message isn’t “You could be us!” but rather “We wouldn’t be here without you!” That’s a simple, yet stark distinction.
Everything about the movie springs forth from that sensibility, then. Instead of seeing how hard these guys work, and their lives do seem to consist mostly of a kind of work where they are traveling from arena to recording studio to arena to photo shoot, we mostly see them dicking around—sorry, I mean “mucking about.” They’re kids, really, after all. And five young guys being given virtually anything they’d like are going to find ways to amuse themselves, and since they’re a group, amuse each other. So there’s a decent amount of footage of them making the most of what little downtime they’re granted by the folks who run the show, and watching the ensuing tomfoolery among the college freshman-age boys, you can’t help but smile and shake your head. They’re just doing what they do, pretending that they’re cool!
Continue reading on the next page…
