Cre­ation Sto­ries – first-look review

The spir­it of exec­u­tive pro­duc­er Dan­ny Boyle looms large over Cre­ation Sto­ries, a biopic of Scot­tish busi­ness­man Alan McGee, whose influ­en­tial Cre­ation Records label launched such acts as Pri­mal Scream, My Bloody Valen­tine and Oasis. Trainspot­ting seems a con­scious influ­ence on direc­tor Nick Moran’s film, from the edit­ing style and fre­net­ic pac­ing to Irvine Welsh being one of its screen­writ­ers. The pres­ence of Ewen Brem­n­er as McGee only ham­mers home the connection.

But there’s anoth­er film­mak­er loom­ing over Cre­ation Sto­ries. Some­one who also made a large­ly comedic, self-reflex­ive biopic con­cern­ing a British record label head who was inspired by see­ing Sex Pis­tols per­form, which cov­ered a sim­i­lar peri­od of time: Michael Win­ter­bot­tom. Speed­ing through three decades’ worth of events but lack­ing any actu­al momen­tum, Cre­ation Sto­ries is like a ver­sion of 24 Hour Par­ty Peo­ple gone hor­ri­bly wrong.

In a 2019 inter­view with NME, McGee men­tioned that the film would take some lib­er­ties in adapt­ing his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, specif­i­cal­ly high­light­ing the inclu­sion of a rec­on­cil­ia­to­ry reunion with his father (played by Skids front­man Richard Job­son), who he appar­ent­ly hasn’t actu­al­ly spo­ken to in many years. That cre­ative choice is indica­tive of Moran and screen­writ­ers Welsh and Dean Cavanagh want­i­ng to make McGee’s sto­ry palat­able to the widest audi­ence possible.

With that in mind, the nar­ra­tive rab­bit holes the film ven­tures down prove espe­cial­ly baf­fling. One exam­ple is a sequence that is nei­ther remote­ly com­pelling nor humor­ous, in which McGee, at the height of his mid-’90s drug prob­lems, spends a night cruis­ing around Los Ange­les with an unbear­able film pro­duc­er acquain­tance (Jason Isaacs). Ear­li­er, a drug-induced vision of not­ed occultist Aleis­ter Crow­ley (Steven Berkoff) hangs out with McGee in a bath­room; this is in no way rel­e­vant to the rest of the film.

Hal­lu­ci­na­tions, played for both trag­ic and osten­si­bly com­ic pur­pos­es, are a recur­ring motif, though none is quite so jar­ring as when the film abrupt­ly switch­es from Leo Flana­gan as a young McGee to Brem­n­er play­ing him while he’s still meant to be in his ear­ly twen­ties. Con­tri­bu­tions from the sup­port­ing cast amount to sin­gle-scene appear­ances by famil­iar faces (Ed Byrne as Alas­tair Camp­bell, Jason Fle­myng as a pro­mot­er), some of whom Moran has worked with as an actor – the direc­tor pops up him­self, too, play­ing Mal­colm McLaren like a haunt­ed scarecrow.

The manip­u­la­tion of McGee and Oasis in the elec­tion of Tony Blair dri­ves much of the third act, which leads to the most dis­com­bob­u­lat­ing ​‘cameo’ of the entire film. Try­ing to pin down the new Prime Min­is­ter at Che­quers for a chat about help­ing unem­ployed musi­cians, McGee is hor­ri­fied by the pres­ence of Jim­my Sav­ile (Alis­tair McGowan) cosy­ing up to the leader. It’s framed as McGee’s dawn­ing real­i­sa­tion that New Labour might be a con, hav­ing appar­ent­ly heard cred­i­ble rumours of Saville’s preda­to­ry sex­u­al abuse through music indus­try associates.

Con­sid­er­ing that McGee’s actu­al auto­bi­og­ra­phy sug­gests he ​“had no idea [Sav­ile] was a nonce, just a dirty old fuck­er”, it comes across as a forced, uncom­fort­able mea cul­pa for sim­ply hav­ing met the man once.