Meet Me in the Bathroom (film)

Meet Me in the Bathroom is a 2022 indie rock documentary film directed by Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern. It is based upon the 2017 book of the same name by Lizzy Goodman.^[3][4]

The film premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, and has received mixed reviews opposite the positivities of its original material. The documentary focuses on 'golden age' of indie rock that steamed from New York and the effects of the September 11 attacks on the revival of rock music.^[5][6]

The film begins with a performance of The Moldy Peaches, which transfers into the forming relationship of the Moldy Peaches and The Strokes through Adam Green meeting Julian Casablancas on a rooftop party.^[7] This friendship led to the Moldy Peaches becoming a supporting act for the Strokes on their 2001 tour for their album Is This It, while the Moldy Peaches had subsequently released their self-titled album. This then leads to the focus of the Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr's experience with heroin at the alleged encouragement of Ryan Adams and Casablancas' disconnectedness with fame within the scene.^[8][9]

Watchers are then introduced to the formation of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, where Karen O had been playing guitar in bars and singing, before forming a band with Nick Zinner and her friend Brian Chase. Their first show was opening for The White Stripes. O previously explains her relationship with anxiety through the insecurity of her racial identity and being a loner. Because of this she adopted a persona on stage which caused her to develop self-destructive tendencies. Along with this persona, she was sexualized by the press and wanted to be taken seriously as an artist. While performing, she crashed head first at a festival off stage to which her head was smashed by a speaker. After this event, she'd eased the persona.^[10][11]

Paul Banks is then focused on as the frontman of Interpol, of whom are struggling to get signed to a record label. After this, Banks explains in the earlier days of Interpol he had depression, and desperately wanted to be a part of the larger rock scene, finding inspiration in the Strokes. They then emerged on a failed tour across the UK, before the release of their first album finding success with the record label Matador. The band was greatly affected by the beginning of peer-to-peer file sharing. This affected the release of their second album that had been leaked online.^[12][13]

DFA Records was created by James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy while collaborating on a David Holmes album together. The duo then signed small band The Rapture who described Murphy as domineering and told him to create his own music instead. Once The Rapture had left the company to find a distributor after the success of their single House of Jealous Lovers, Murphy began to start writing his own music out of his depression of the band leaving. This then led to the creation of the indie rock electronic band LCD Soundsystem.^[14][15]

Lovelace and Southern lived in England and were fresh out of university during the early days of the indie sleaze movement and knew that, "Something was happening" in the U.S. The two were keenly aware of the Strokes rise to fame, and were following the rock scene through filming local Liverpool bands and corporate films.^[16] Before Meet Me in the Bathroom, they'd also worked on documentaries in 2010 with Blur in No Distance Left To Run and in 2012 with LCD Soundsystem for Shut Up and Play the Hits.^[17][18] For the production, some archived film and photographs have been accredited to Nanci Sarrouf, and the Pulse Films archive.^[3][19]

In a Nylon interview with original author Lizzy Goodman on her role as an exclusive producer, she deemed the film "an educational living and breathing archive." She left creative control to Southern and Lovelace but still provided the duo with interview footage and audio recordings. She wanted them to have this film as their own project.^[19]

Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs was heavily involved in how her experience as a woman in the scene would be documented with Southern and Lovelace. The film goes into how O faced frequent sexualization and was a victim of sensationalism,

"It was really interesting to hear that perspective on that time, because quite often when you look back it's a lot of white boys in skinny jeans and Converse, and she had a very specific role in that period. She talks about the way that she was objectified by photographers and in the press and sometimes found it hard to be taken seriously as an artist. Through the prism of today, that’s an interesting aspect of that period. They all seem quite comfortable talking about the lows of it, because all of those rock’n’roll cliches reared their heads relatively soon for those bands."^[20]

— Southern

The film begins and ends with Ed Begley reading Walt Whitman's 1860 poem Mannahatta.^[21] The film provides the point of view of the September 11 attacks as being a destruction of community, while the revival of punk-rock bands served as a distraction.^[22] Music was used in the film to be seen as a coping mechanism away from generational devastation and conservative uprising.^[23][24]

The film was showcased at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Separate premiere events were held highlighting performances of indie band The Moldy Peaches and a solo act Adam Green, who were featured in the film. Other premiere events occurred in New York and Los Angeles several times through October and November before its one theatrical night on 8 November.^[25] It was available to stream on Showtime by 25 November.^[26] It was disturbed in the US under Utopia with UTA Independent Film Group representing the filmmakers.^[3]

The film was covered during Sundance's Film Festival season to which journalist Ross Bonaime of Collider gave it an A- for its encompassing use of all assets of the musical scene.^[17] This opposite's John Nugent of Empire's review with a 3/5 stars which falters with the tone of messiness because of the several assets compared Southern and Lovelance's previous work Shut up and Play the Hits.^[27] While Alex Hudson of Exclaim! claims that it feels as if watching 5 different films at once and doesn't focus on the fact it of the 'scene' of it all, because of the lack of all the bands being related despite being a similar genre.^[28] Alex Nolan of Hot press claims the positives of the film seem to be heavily relying on the nostalgia of it all, which leaves journalists wondering, "Will we ever see it happen again?"^[29]

• Official website
• Meet Me in the Bathroom at IMDb