''Beats'' is a 2019 British

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed Brian Welsh. It was based upon a play of the same name by Kieran Hurley, who adapted the screenplay with Welsh;

Steven Soderbergh Steven Andrew Soderbergh (; born January 14, 1963) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer and editor. A pioneer of modern independent cinema, Soderbergh is an acclaimed and prolific filmmaker. Soderbergh's direc ...

acts as an executive producer. The plot follows a pair of teenage friends in 1994 Scotland who try and sneak into an illegal rave party. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 17 May 2019.

Premise

The film is set in 1994 in

Livingston, Scotland Livingston ( sco, Leivinstoun, gd, Baile Dhunlèibhe) is the largest town in West Lothian, Scotland. Designated in 1962, it is the fourth post-war new town to be built in Scotland. Taking its name from a village of the same name incorporated ...

, against the backdrop of the

Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (c.33) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It introduced a number of changes to the law, most notably in the restriction and reduction of existing rights, clamping down on unlicensed ...

, which effectively banned outdoor

rave A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...

parties across the whole of the UK. Best friends Johnno and Spanner are going to a rave for the first, and perhaps last time together.

Production

Brian Welsh first came into contact with

around 2015, after Soderberg had seen an episode of ''

Black Mirror ''Black Mirror'' is a British anthology television series created by Charlie Brooker. Individual episodes explore a diversity of genres, but most are set in near-future dystopias with science fiction technology—a type of speculative fictio ...

'' that Welsh had directed and approached him with a new project. While Welsh turned that down, he showed his ''Beats'' script to Soderberg, who then joined as an executive producer on the film. For the climactic rave sequence, filming took place in a warehouse in the

Glasgow city centre Glasgow City Centre is the central business district of Glasgow, Scotland. Is bounded by Saltmarket, High Street and Castle Street to the east, The River Clyde to the south and the M8 motorway to its west and north. Glasgow City Centre is comp ...

, using over 1,500 background actors. The film's soundtrack was curated by JD Twitch of

Optimo Optimo Espacio ('Optimum Space') was a weekly Sunday-night club based in Glasgow, Scotland at the Sub Club on Jamaica Street, as well as a collective moniker for the night's resident DJ duo. Having run every week since it was founded in 1997, on ...

Release

''Beats'' had its international debut at the 2019

International Film Festival Rotterdam The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is an annual film festival held at the end of January in various locations in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Since its foundation in 1972, it has maintained a focus on independent and experimental fi ...

. On 17 May 2019 it was released in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. A ...

, and on 7 November 2019 in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

Reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average of . The site's critics consensus reads: "Well-acted and enlivened by an evocative soundtrack and period detail, ''Beats'' draws timeless themes out of its specific story and setting." At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 74 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Wendy Ide of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' gave the film 4/5 stars, writing: "It's a terrific little film that combines the earthy humour and honesty of a Shane Meadows movie with an unexpected expressionistic section – flooded with colour – that channels the boys' joyful dancefloor abandon." In a separate ''Guardian'' review, Mike McCahill gave it three stars, saying that "this teen bromance eventually escapes into amiable nostalgia and artful euphoria".

References

External links

* {{Brian Welsh 2019 films 2019 drama films British drama films Scottish films Films set in 1994 Films set in Glasgow Films shot in Glasgow English-language Scottish films 2010s English-language films 2010s British films