One Direction: This Is Us

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But “the fans” demanded more, and the band gained popularity in the UK, then Europe, and then the rest of the world; in their first two years of formation, the band had (allegedly) become more popular, more quickly, than The Beatles. While the film keeps reminding us that “the fans” are responsible for their popularity, we know it’s actually clever marketing by producer Cowell, filling in a huge gap in the clean-cut boy band world. Clearly, there’s still a market for this type of thing.

Absent from This Is Us is any hint of personal relationships the boys might have, of drug or alcohol use, of any in-band conflict, any original thoughts or opinions, or anything, really, resembling any kind of conflict whatsoever (there are some interesting angles to take here too – Malik is a practicing Muslim, and Styles is a former beau of Taylor Swift – that are left completely unexplored). These boys are clean-cut saints who love their mothers and adore their fans as much as their fans adore them.

The concert scenes, then – which take up roughly half of the film – represent a welcome relief from the bubbly oversell. Despite the questionable quality of the music (only a brief cover of Wheatus’ Teenage Dirtbag brought some contrast from the pop overkill), and the lame (non) choreography featuring the boys limply strutting their stuff across the stage, the concert sequences can’t help but reveal what the rest of the film tries to obscure: this glossy, packaged product blatently sold to their legion of shrieking teen fans.