Shoplifters of the World

Name: Shoplifters of the World
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Released: March 26, 2021
Duration: 90 min
Rating: 50
Cast: Cameron Moulène, Celia Au, Elena Kampouris, Ellar Salmon, Helena Howard

2021

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Mixed or average reviews based on 9 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 6 Ratings

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7.0	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 6 Ratings

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Shoplifters Of The World

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Movie Details & Credits

Front Row Filmed Entertainment | Release Date: March 26, 2021 | Not Rated

Starring: Cameron Moulène, Celia Au, Elena Kampouris, Ellar Salmon, Helena Howard, Imani Lewis, James Bloor, Joe Manganiello, Nick Krause, Olivia Luccardi, Thomas Lennon, Tonatiuh

Summary: In the Summer of 1987, four friends, reeling from the sudden break-up of the iconic British band The Smiths, embark on a night out of partying to mourn their musical loss. At the same time, an impassioned Smiths fan takes a local radio DJ hostage at gunpoint and forces him to play nothing but Smiths tracks. With the radio station playing asIn the Summer of 1987, four friends, reeling from the sudden break-up of the iconic British band The Smiths, embark on a night out of partying to mourn their musical loss. At the same time, an impassioned Smiths fan takes a local radio DJ hostage at gunpoint and forces him to play nothing but Smiths tracks. With the radio station playing as the soundtrack to their night, the friends go on a wild journey of self-discovery that will transform them forever. … Expand

Director: Stephen Kijak

Genre(s): Drama, Comedy

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 90 min

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Critic Reviews

Kim Hughes

Apr 2, 2021

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. Read full review

Jeannette Catsoulis

Mar 25, 2021

This sweetly nostalgic look at lost boys and lonely girls feels like it comes straight from the heart. Read full review

Katie Walsh

Mar 25, 2021

Shoplifters of the World, in fact, belongs to Cleo, not just because Howard is such a dizzyingly charismatic actress but because her story, which unfolds parallel to Dean’s, is a heartfelt coming-of-age drama that perfectly embodies the youthful angst, ennui and romantic longing expressed so well in the music of the Smiths. Read full review

Josh Modell

Mar 25, 2021

Shoplifters Of The World seems intended as a love letter to The Smiths, but in trying to convey the British band’s importance, it comes across more like fan fiction—too reference-heavy for a general audience, too shallow for those already in the know. Read full review

IndieWire David Ehrlich

Mar 29, 2021

The rare moments when Shoplifters of the World isn’t tripping over its own cutesy fan service reveal a movie that’s listening for the real and mysterious friction that has always transmuted suicidal music into its own kind of salvation. Read full review

RogerEbert.com Monica Castillo

Mar 29, 2021

It’s unfortunate that the finished tribute doesn’t quite come together, and the tension between needing a compelling narrative and paying respects to bands whose music changes our lives never gets resolved. Read full review

Screen Rant Mae Abdulbaki

Jun 8, 2021

The lack of a strong narrative and characters, paired with pacing issues, turn the film from an intriguing premise to a boring, hollow, and overall tedious watch. Read full review

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User Reviews

themajorcge

Mar 28, 2021

Such an enjoyable movie if you’re a fan of The Smiths and 80s alternative. Highly recommend.

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metacritic444

Mar 28, 2021

There is a scene early on in the film Shoplifters of the World that happens so quickly you may not notice it. As the camera pans around a restaurant, someone holds up a copy of the book entitled James Dean is Not Dead. To many watching this film that moment may be fleeting andThere is a scene early on in the film Shoplifters of the World that happens so quickly you may not notice it. As the camera pans around a restaurant, someone holds up a copy of the book entitled James Dean is Not Dead. To many watching this film that moment may be fleeting and inconsequential, but diehard Smiths (and Dean) fans will recognize this book as written by Stephen Morrissey as a love letter to his idol when he was quite young. Years after the author became simply known as Morrissey, and he seemed genuinely embarrassed by it, calling it in interviews a “pamphlet, really”. He is not wrong. The book is a rambling mess as told through the unobjective lens of a fawning superfan. One wonders is Stephen Kijak, the director of Shoplifters of the World will look back on this film with the same reflection. Millennials and Gen Z will likely forgive or perhaps not even recognize the film’s many flaws and just focus on the music and 80’s references. But fellow Gen Xers who lived through the magical early Smiths era are likely to grow bored with the lack of story and inauthenticity including some truly cringe-worthy moments. There are a few bright spots. Breakout star Helena Howard as Cleo wants to shine, but unfortunately her dialogue is so forced and vapid (constant and annoying song lyric references aside) it’s hard for her to grab hold of the material fully. She calls out the posers who don’t understand the band yet her best friend Sheila dresses like a Madonna wannabe who in 1987 was already a superstar, and whose legions of mainstream fans rarely, if ever, crossed into the artsy misfit crowd who favored bands like the Smiths. The only reason the character seems to exist is the moment when she gets to literally take a bow to “her” song. Obviously Kijak is a Madonna fan too, and chose Sheila’s style just to blow Madge a kiss. But the creative choice here blurs the line and turns what could be great content into music video quality b reel promotional footage whose time could have been better spent developing his characters. In another annoying technique, unnecessary clips of Smiths interviews from their early years are injected into the story as though to remind us why the band was so great. Kijak who apparently has more experience in music documentaries than crafting a feature film, seems unaware of his intentions. Is this a documentary? A fictional story? Fan fiction? It’s like eating a bad meal with Smiths songs on shuffle then having a fitful sleep in an alternate Smiths universe. Are the bicycle riders real or imaginary? Perhaps we to be hypnotized by the many, many shots of a spinning record playing into walking the line between belief and disbelief. Going for breadth and not depth with his character development, it’s impossible to dig deeper into what we are meant to feel for these people, if anything. They are not particularly like-able as they work their way through an American Graffiti influenced evening. A thin storyline meant as a vehicle to just play great music. Perhaps if the filmmaker chose a town other than Denver which, though remote, is hardly the alienating culture of working class Manchester, or the speck of Fairmount Indiana where James Dean was raised. There are some interesting exchanges between Dean (Ellar Coltrane’s character in the film, not the movie actor, though the name choice is another groaner) and the DJ who find common ground over the course of playing the Smiths catalog, again the “Deja Vu” moment of Wolfman Jack playing that same role for a young Richard Dreyfus in American Graffiti. But I had to ask myself, were there no college radio stations playing the Smiths in Denver in the 80’s? Dean at least is able to give some context to his love for the band, sharing how the John Peel sessions saved him from suicide. By 1987 the Smiths were already on the way out with their last (and least interesting) album, Strageways Here We Come. If the film was not centered on the premise of the band breaking up, if the characters were still in high school, in the early 80’s working at wherever it was when they first met, when the band was also in it’s heyday, this film would have felt fresher and far more interesting. It cannot be underscored too heavily how indie culture formed in the 80s. There was no social media or even the internet. Only a few families had cable early on, which meant access to MTV. The only way you connected with fellow fans was in the indie record store, a thrift store, your high school art, music or theater class, in a club or at a concert. This is one of the few things the film gets right. The Smiths, when they first appeared, smartly defied the toxic masculinity pervasive in rock, giving a voice to the underdog. Unfortunately, the story here, stuck together with paste and bubble gum, doesn’t do justice to the specialness of this moment in time, or the songs that made you cry...or the ones that saved your life.… Expand

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