Glitter & Doom Throws A Fistful Of One While Sparing the Other
You could eat a whole package of Oreos and chase it with a bag of Tootsie Pops, or you could watch Glitter & Doom, the new film from Tom Gustafson; it all depends on how you prefer to get sent into toxic shock. “Too sweet” isn’t the worst problem a movie can have; under the stress of everyday life, allowing yourself a treat is practically a moral imperative. But a movie where nothing happens of lasting consequence is an indulgence too far, especially when worse offenses are committed right there in public view, also involving the Indigo Girls.
The musical Glitter & Doom features no original music, instead cleverly adapting the influential and decades-spanning discography of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. On paper, the pitch sells itself; since first getting together in 1987, Ray and Saliers have composed an unimpeachable body of work without which roots music specifically, and American political activism more broadly, wouldn’t be the same. Drawing on their contributions to national culture and repurposing them in a new context underscores the Indigo Girls’ timelessness, at least in theory; tracks like “Get Out the Map,” “Galileo,” “Shed Your Skin,” and “Keeper of My Heart” could mean the world to anyone, anywhere, like, for instance, two unmoored young men who fall in love with each other over the course of a summer.
But if these songs initially function as attestations of the protagonists’ varying woes, they are, over the film’s running time, corrupted by something that feels antithetical to the Indigo Girls’ nature: Ego. It’s one thing for capricious circus performer Glitter (Alex Diaz) and glum aspiring musician Doom (Alan Cammish) to have their story told through the band’s music, It’s quite another for the duo to actually appear in the film in supporting parts as, of course, musical types, dispelling the jukebox illusions Gustafson conjures through his filmmaking.
So as not to spurn Ray and Saliers, Glitter & Doom offsets its unfailing pep with a graceless desire to be liked, carrying out a relentless charm campaign. It’s a nice movie, populated with nice characters, propped up on nice musical performances and fueled by an over-precious spirit. But that niceness kneecaps drama, to say nothing of how it accidentally undermines its title. Neither Doom nor Glitter must make any difficult decisions, suffer repercussions, or even simply sit with bad feelings.