I have been dressed for this occasion for two days straight: ironic, muted, flannel jeans skinnier than Nicole Richie, blister-inducing Chuck Taylor kicks, a trapper hat straight out of Northern Michigan and, of course, imitation Ray-Bans. But don’t worry — unlike most people afraid to be stamped a “hipster,” my fay-Bans have lenses to accommodate my 20/80 excuse for vision.
Not to drive the fair-trade nail into my stereotypical argyle-sweater coffin, but I’m typing this review while craving Starbucks on an undeniably sleek MacBook Pro. No joke.
Kicking off the first night of the Virginia Film Festival, I Am Not a Hipster is one part Control — a grainy, bleak take on a Joy Division biopic — and two parts High Fidelity — where admittedly archaic cassette culture takes a backseat to grade-A drama — dotted off with a dollop of self-mocking sarcasm. If anyone truly believes this film adheres to its title, he’d obviously be overlooking the gratuitous nods to the much-parodied subculture: Pabst Blue Ribbon, cheap cigarettes and a penchant for obscure indie-rock serve as the spectacle’s driving force.
Set against a soundtrack predominantly crooned by acoustic slow jam upstarts Canines, I Am Not a Hipster depicts San Diego’s “starving artist” indie scene, with forlorn folk-rocker Brook Hyde (Dominic Bogart) serving as the movement’s poster child. Coping with the death of his mother, his life is plagued by loneliness and isolation, and despite his art being praised as revolutionary, he deems his efforts empty and passionless.
Substitute teacher by day, eternally tormented Tom Waits clone by night, he swallows his bitter solitude alongside a vegan diet. Among his ragtag clan of artistic cohorts is the iPhone touting, bike-racing modernist Clarke (played in a truly non-mainstream fashion by Alvaro Orlando), the laughably realistic Spaceface, a blatant farce of computer-driven dance music (Adam Shapiro), and Hyde’s three supportive, sympathetic sisters (Tammy Minoff, Lauren Coleman, Kandis Erickson).
The performances in the film are nothing less than breathable representations of the trendsetters they attempt to avoid illustrating. Brook is crushingly cynical and intolerant of digital buffoonery — calling all Instagram fanatics, your number’s up! Clarke, who’s living easy between unemployment checks, is unabashedly sociable and fittingly flamboyant.
There’s a scene where Hyde nonchalantly writes off the entire indie subculture during a radio interview, cursing the music industry at large for its predictability. In another fit of cathartic negativity, Hyde deems Auto-Tune and shallow “photography,” both staples in the decades of the double-click, as pointless as his painstakingly pensive music.
Music films tend to reach the common conclusion that the tunes transform tragedy into togetherness, but I Am Not a Hipster sidesteps the trite conclusion for something more encompassing and deep. Chalk one up for these true hipsters. They lived up to their label.
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