The basic scenario of SOULBOY is a familiar one: boy Joe (Martin Compston) meets unattainable girl (Nichola Burley) and follows her up to a club in Wigan that functions as the center of Northern Soul. There he learns how to dance, but while doing so he gradually discovers that plain lass Mandy (Felicity Jones) has fallen in love with him. After Mandy takes an overdose, Joe realizes his true feelings. Back in the club he has an energetic dance-off with smarmy Alan (Craig Parkinson), and emerges triumphant, thereafter to enjoy love with Mandy.
The grimy, down-at-heel atmosphere of mid-Seventies Stoke-on-Trent is admirably evoked by director Shimmy Marcus, from the poky two-up, two-down houses to the local pub, where everyone pours pints down without ever seeming to enjoy themselves. Joe's mate Russ (Alfie Allen) has a grotesque dance that he calls the "dying fly," but he can only perform that when he is drunk. Sometimes Marcus overdoes the Seventies aura, such as having politician Enoch Powell speaking on one of the car radios; by 1974 he was virtually a spent force in politics, having resigned from the Conservative Party and joined the Ulster Unionists. Some of the cars seem a little antiquated too, dating from a decade earlier.
Once the action shifts to the club, however, the mise-en-scene changes abruptly. Vladimir Trivic's camera admirably captures the phantasmagoria of color, light, bodily movements, sweat and unadulterated fun that characterized the late-night gigs at the club, whose patrons came from all over the country each Saturday night by coach to enjoy the fun. For those of us with longer memories, the set pieces have strong echoes of Saturday NIGHT FEVER (1977) with Joe in the John Travolta role, but that resemblance does not detract from the exuberant staging, in which music and dance combine to create a series of stirring sequences. The final dance-off between Joe and Alan is something to behold: director Marcus uses slow-motion and frequent close-ups to make us aware of the sheer effort involved by the protagonists.
The film ends with a series of of short interviews from people - now very much middle-aged - that frequented the club when it was in its heyday during the mid-Seventies. Their reminiscences capture the atmosphere of excitement and daring that was characteristic of the club; no wonder it was named "best disco in the world" later on in the decade, despite its assuming location in a Lancashire industrial town.
