MIFF 2018 Review: I USED TO BE NORMAL: A Boyband Fangirl Story

I Used to be Normal is a documentary about obsession. But it’s not obsession in a weird way. It’s not creepy or dangerous. It’s about how four/five boys can come into a girl’s life in her teens and make her entire world a better place full of frosted tips, rain-soaked abs, and music that makes everything better.

Focusing on four women from around the world (two in the US, two in Australia), I Used to Be Normal charts their differing journeys from youthful obsession to where they ended up in their relationship with One Direction, Take That, The Backstreet Boys, and the Beatles.

Guilty Pleasures

The movie focuses on the boyband fandom of four women aged between 17 and 60-something. The two women on the further ends of the age bracket are unashamed with their boyband love while the two women in their thirties have either had to hide their love of the genre or live with the fact that they are on their own with that love.

Elif, the American teenager, is a wild One Direction fan when we meet her aged 17. She is the classic screaming lunatic of a fan, bursting into tears at the very mention of Harry, Liam, Zayn, Niall or Louis. She is wild-eyed and big smiled, and her fandom is written on every inch of her face.

Susan, the Aussie retiree, is a Beatles fan. And really in this context she is a bit of an outlier as I doubt it has ever been shameful to be a Beatles fan. The Fab Four remain the greatest band in the world among men and women, but it is very interesting to see scenes of 1960s fans screaming, pulling their hair, and fainting, after we’ve just seen scenes of One Direction fans doing the same.

The more guilt-ridden fans are Sadia and Dara. Sadia is an American Backstreet Boys fan who has been obsessed since her teens and who finds that a lot of her friends have grown out of the fandom while she remains pretty obsessed with the band. Dara is an Australian Take That fan who spent most of her life deep in the boyband fandom closet, terribly afraid to let the world know about her love of Take That.

These four women are all incredible. Director, Jessica Leski, never plays their fandom for mockery and gives them the space to talk about their favourite subject without trying to make their passion come across as insanity. I’m not sure a male director would have had such a light touch with this material, but Leski manages to get a lot of laughs in her interviews without it ever feeling like bullying, which is quite a hard needle to thread.

The Songs that Saved Your Life

The buoyancy of the clips of screaming fans and dancing boys, is cut through with a vein of sadness. The movie shows how these fans, in differing situations, have taken solace in the music they love.

Sadia and Susan especially have encountered hard times and found that the music of the Beatles and the Backstreet Boys has pulled them out of the darkness.

However, it’s Elif’s story that has the most poignancy in it. Unlike the other subjects, we follow Elif’s story during some of her formative years as we meet her at 16/17 and stay with her until she turns 19. We see her go from screaming fangirl to college applicant who, from her love of One Direction, has decided to follow her own musical dreams much to her parents’ dismay and dismissal. Her story is a hard one to watch as we see her go from happy go lucky fangirl to someone trapped by culture and expectations.

Conclusion: I Used to be Normal

This is a fantastic movie whether you’ve ever liked boybands or not. We’ve all got musical skeletons in our closets, bands we liked and don’t admit it anymore (I was a huge fan of The Barenaked Ladies and owned two Nickelback albums), and it’s nice to see these four fans shout their fandom from the rooftops.

If you’re looking for a deeper analysis of obsession, you’ve come to the wrong place. If you’re looking for an affirmation that liking what you like is totally fine, then this is the movie for you.

What is/was your musical guilty pleasure? Let us know in the comments below.