1 hr 39 mins, in select cinemas now

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Back to the Future homage from web comedians is a fantastically irreverent, offbeat comedy.

Describing Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie to colleagues proved very difficult after I saw it last Monday. For a start, it’s got nothing to do with Kurt Cobain or Dave Grohl, the carefully misspelled band name being a joke that is never actually addressed in the movie itself. Nirvanna (because yes, I am definitely shortening the title to that) is in fact a spin-off of a TV show, that was adapted from a web series, and is in itself both a parody of and homage to a classic 80s film that the characters frequently tell us they are trying to replicate. Confused yet? Don’t worry – you actually don’t really need to understand any of that backstory at all, and in fact perhaps it’s best if you don’t.  Go in with an open mind and you can expect to have a pretty great time watching what is an especially funny and at times genuinely sweet offbeat comedy.

The plot of Nirvanna is very similar to that of Back to the Future – because the two protagonists  have decided to copy it. To explain: Matt and Jay are the only members of the hopeless, gigless band Nirvanna (no relation), who have been trying and failing for fifteen years to book a slot at the Rivoli in their native Toronto. After their latest harebrained scheme fails in spectacular fashion (parachuting into a baseball arena as a publicity stunt), Matt decides to try a BTTF-inspired time travel hoax, retrofitting his RV with sci-fi-looking doohickeys and a fake flux capacitor. But when a spilled bottle of a discontinued soda brings the time machine to life, Matt and Jay are catapulted back to 2008. Jay – the more talented of the two, already pondering a break with Matt to pursue a solo career – jumps at the opportunity to change the band’s past to improve the present.

At one point in Nirvanna, Matt (Matt Johnson, playing himself as well as directing) stares directly down the barrel to say: “This film is going to be a copyright nightmare.” He’s right, and one of the many bizarre wonders of this film is how it gets away with being such a blatant remake of BTTF, right down to a crucially-timed lightning strike and a Zemeckis-inspired score. It offers some parody of the original, including a few great zingers on the trilogy’s flaws (“This happened in Back to the Future One! And Two . . . and also Three!”). But it’s more homage than satire, the comedy coming not from critique of the originals, but the absurdity of swapping Doc and Marty for two failed web musicians from Toronto.

It’s worth delving into the history at this point, because as mentioned, Nirvanna is not Matt and Jay’s first rodeo. The two stars of this movie (Johnson and Jay McCarrol, also playing himself) have been portraying the bandmates since 2007. Their web series ran from 2007-2009, and earned them a TV show – but not until 2017. It wasn’t until a third decade arrived (and following success from Johnson’s 2023 feature Blackberry) that the film made it off the ground. 

So there’s a lot of lore that’s gone into this movie, and presumably there’s a dedicated fanbase out there that’s pretty thrilled to see Nirvanna have its day in the sun (the movie’s been a critical hit). But as a fresh viewer, the advantage of these existing series is that they allow for some brilliantly executed time travel scenes. Usually in time travel movies, you’ve got two options: either cast younger/older lookalikes (like in Netflix’s brilliant Dark) or alter the appearance of the main cast, whether prosthetically (like in BTTF) or digitally (not a time travel movie, but see The Irishman for how badly that can work out). In Nirvanna, none of this is necessary because Johnson and McCarroll have extensive footage of their younger selves in character. The way this footage is incorporated into the movie is brilliantly inventive, and an incredibly fun watch. There’s very little CGI trickery – it’s simply clever writing and editing that allows the characters to convincingly interact with their younger selves. Not only is it incredibly entertaining, it adds an undeniable pathos to Matt and Jay’s reflections on how their friendship and their careers have changed (or not changed) in the intervening years.

As well as actual footage from years gone by, what’s also carried over from the web series is a very particular type of comedy that will resonate with anyone who remembers the early days of internet series. It’s that sort of outsider humour, offbeat and memeable, where the homemade aesthetic isn’t hidden away but played for laughs. Nirvanna is shot in mockumentary style, with the camera crew alternately acknowledged and ignored according to whatever’s funniest in the scene. There also appears to be several scenes in which real members of the public have unwittingly become part of the film (a great sequence where a French tourist is roped in to help build Matt’s jerry-rigged time machine comes to mind). The fact that it’s hard to tell which these scenes are, and which ones are purely staged, is a credit to Johnson’s comedic instincts as a director. 

I’ve spent so much of this review trying to explain and explore how this movie is put together, that I’ve sort of abandoned the qualitative review part – the bit where I say whether it’s good or not. The answer is it’s very good. It’s wonderfully funny in a fantastically irreverent kind of way, and it manages to offer up a pretty compelling time travel story, too (not least because it’s riffing on one of the best and most beloved films in that genre). 

If you’re worried that Nirvanna has too much of a barrier to entry – too many reference points to get your head around – don’t be. I went into this movie almost completely blind; it was my partner’s pick as a mild preference out of the only four movies we could find showing at 4pm on a Monday, as part of our anniversary celebration. I’d never seen or in fact even heard of the series – though Johnson and McCarrol are keen to point out that they made the film to be approachable for all audiences, not just the existing fanbase. Perhaps I shouldn’t be hyping the movie up at all, as it was such a delight to come to it with no expectations at all and thoroughly enjoy all 99 minutes of it. I strongly recommend that anyone who can, does the same.