I don’t talk much about music on here, it is a movie blog after all, but I’m fairly confident that by now I’ve at least established that Green Day is my favorite band. Right? I’ve established that? Okay cool. Just in case, Green Day is my favorite band. Has been since college. Lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong has had a smattering of small acting roles here and there (a guest stint on Nurse Jackie is the one that’s most memorable to me, and of course stepping in as St Jimmy in American Idiot on Broadway), but to date he’s only had one lead role: Ordinary World.
I’ll admit, I haven’t really prioritized this film. I’d had it on my Best Buy wish list for a while, but hadn’t brought myself to shell out the fifteen bucks for it. I felt I could tell pretty easily from the surface what the film would be like (light and cute indie, not that refined, but enjoyable enough) so I kept putting it off. Plus the song Ordinary World is nice, but for me it’s not one of the highlights of its album, Revolution Radio. Then a couple weeks ago Billie Joe posted on his socials that Ordinary World dropped on Netflix. My excuses dwindled. Even though I’m trying to focus on revisiting things in the movie wall, I did make a point to check this out. And it was basically what I expected.
Billie Joe is a dad. A normal, ordinary dad, who used to be a minor rock star back in the day. But now, on his 40th birthday, his life revolves around his wife and two kids and boring job at his brother’s hardware store. Unsatisfied and dreaming of what used to be, he throws an impromptu bash at a fancy hotel and invites his old band mates who invite a slew of strangers. You can guess where this goes.
And yup, what I expected. Cute and light, very predictable, but full of enough heart to keep me interested. It is kinda tough to watch a movie where your protagonist makes one bad decision after another after another (especially when you know where it’s all heading) but it was a pleasant journey. I was mostly just amused at seeing Billie Joe as an ordinary dad. I know IRL he’s father to two boys with his wife of many many years, but it’s not a side of him we get too much insight into. I really liked that. I don’t know that there’s much here for you if you’re not much of a Green Day fan, but it was lovely for me.