UK Premiere / Documentary – UK

Showing @ Filmhouse 2 Fri 24 @ 22:10 & Sat 25 @ 17:15

Jeanie Finlay / UK / 2011 / 74 min / English

Vinyl records are a thing of yester-year, and a combination of ever-advancing technology and the uniformity of our high streets means that independent record shops are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. One of the few still struggling on is Sound It Out Records in Stockton on Tees, run for seventeen years by human computer catalogue Tom and his assistant David, with the former having long and personal relationships with his self-proclaimed ‘random’ customers.

Sure enough there are some quirky characters; one guy wants his record collection melted into a vinyl coffin when he dies while another is in a constant semi-serious search for a young millionairess. But their micro stories and interest in the shop isn’t deep or interesting enough to keep us hooked, and you’re left questioning what the point of the documentary is. The one significant thing about Sound It Out Records is that it is the only record shop in Teeside, but other than that there seems no purpose for such a long film. The shop isn’t under threat of closure, it hasn’t just come under new ownership, it hasn’t won an award; it is about as unremarkable as you can get. As the film progresses from an accidentally comic start into a meaningless but not entirely unpleasant drag, the mind wonders into what it’s all leading to. The answer is, unfortunately, nothing.

In no way cinematic, this film would be much better suited to TV, and even then its running time of 74 minutes is unnecessarily long. Requiring no effort of thought and with no social message beyond briefly highlighting the evils of big chains like HMV, this is the ideal film to fall asleep to at the end of a long and hectic day.