A Night of Wild Partying Hits a Well-Worn ‘Groove’

Before the ‘60s were over, the boomers had already made it clear that prefab nostalgia was a potential gold mine. (Why else was Sha Na Na so popular at Woodstock?) Ever since, music-saturated movies have been proving the point. “American Graffiti” (1973). “Animal House” (1978). “Dazed and Confused” (1993). Not great cinema in every case, but cultural phenoms whose charm was embodied in their ad hoc (and sometimes quasi-criminal) communities.

Where Greg Harrison’s “Groove” strays from the fold--the only way it strays from the fold--is in locating its community in the here and now, in present-day music and mores. Inside an abandoned San Francisco warehouse, a crew of guerrilla promoters plots out an illicit rave--a party/perpetual-motion machine where the engine is the DJ, the fuel is acid and Ecstasy, the invitations are e-mailed and the barely post-adolescent sense of self-absorption leads to soul-baring, -searching and -scorching. You’ve seen it before. You just might not have heard it before.

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DJ-of-the-moment John Digweed is the biggest name in writer-director Harrison’s debut film, but among the things “Groove” has in common with those other youth movies (and “The Breakfast Club,” and “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and “Empire Records,” etc.) is a cast of young unknowns so poised for discovery their performances feel like unsolicited deliveries of bursting fruit.

Ripest of all is Lola Glaudini (“NYPD Blue,” “Down to You”), whose black-clad Leyla is a New York transplant, and her urban-sexual cool masks a sad sense of non-achievement. Drawn to her--and open about it, only because the drugs have overridden his programmed timidity--is David (Hamish Linklater), a would-be novelist currently writing repair manuals.

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Around them swirls a night’s worth of characters whose problems and personalities wouldn’t be particularly exotic on your basic daytime drama.

Harmony and Colin (Mackenzie Firgens and Denny Kirkwood) are young lovers who get engaged at the beginning of the evening, but by the end they have their romance rocked by overindulgence. (Harrison is brazenly blunt about drug use at raves, although it would be inaccurate to call “Groove” a pro-drug movie.) Anthony (Vince Riverside) is a kind of predator, skulking around exploitatively and instinctively, rubbing decent people like Beth (Rachel True) the wrong way. Ernie (Steve Van Wormer), your host for the evening, spends his time sobering up overdoses, conning cops and striving for the “nod”--the gesture of approval he gets from the ravers he entertains.

Harrison gives us a glimpse into a subculture that thrives on an intrinsic underground-ness, but it’s only a glimpse. There’s not enough sustained musical momentum to simulate the energy of an actual rave; the characters are likable but unremarkable. The most resonant aspect of “Groove” is the paradox of pop-music movements: how transient they are as well as critically important, at least when it’s your first time around.

* MPAA rating: R, for drug use, language and brief sexuality. Times guidelines: Frequent drug use, adult situations, language.

‘Groove’

Lola Glaudini: Leyla

Hamish Linklater: David

Denny Kirkwood: Colin

Mackenzie Firgens: Harmony

Sony Pictures Classics, in association with 415 Productions, presents “Groove.” Writer-director-editor Greg Harrison. Producers Danielle Renfrew, Greg Harrison. Executive producers Jeff Southard, Michael Bayne. Cinematographer Matthew Irving. Costume designers Elizabeth Rodriguez, Kei Hashinoguchi. Music supervisor Wade Randolph Hampton. Sound designer Andrea Gard. Running time: 1 hour, 26 minutes.

At selected theaters.