“SHOPLIFTERS OF THE WORLD” DRAWS ON DENVER MYTH
Denver-set movie “Shoplifters of the World” based on reallife Smiths, Morrissey lore
Twelve years ago, Stephen Kijak decided to make a coming-of-age movie based on his experiences as an adolescent in 1980s Massachusetts. What he ended up making was a film about Denver teens mourning the loss of legendary English band The Smiths.
“The script was always running in the background of my documentary career, which became my bread and butter,” said Kijak, 51. “But I started out as more of a narrative filmmaker, and I wanted one for me for a change. This was the perfect idea.”
Most recently acclaimed for HBO’s “Equal,” Kijak had directed documentaries on Scott Walker (“30th Century Man”), The Rolling Stones (“Stones in Exile”) and others before getting around to filming “Shoplifters of the World.” The movie will be released in theaters (none in Denver, as of press time), on-demand and digital on March 26.
Cape Cod may have inspired the setting, but that changed one fateful night in Los Angeles, Kijak said. Producer Lorianne Hall, a Denver native, introduced him to an urban legend surrounding one of his all-time favorite bands.
The lore seemed too good, too movie-perfect, to be true. In reality, it began in 1988, when a Denver teen plotted for months to (but didn’t actually) take over a Denver-area Top 40 station at gunpoint. His goal was to force the DJ to play nothing but The Smiths cassettes and albums he had in his car. He was arrested in the parking lot before anything happened, The Denver Post reported at the time.
The truth, however, was less appealing than the myth. As the legend grew in and outside of Colorado, it eventually made its way to English singer-songwriter and The Smiths frontman Morrissey, who was predictably offended it hadn’t become a global news event. It was only in a 2013 “Smithsbusters” story and subsequent series in Denver’s Westword that the truth regained its ground (some, anyway).
Just as bizarre, in hindsight, is that despite spending most of his time in Manchester, England, Morrissey visited Arvada for seven-week stretches throughout 1979 as his sister, Mary, lived there, according to the singer’s autobiography. On Twitter, my colleague Matt Sebastian also pointed out that, at the time, Morrissey had taken out an ad in the Rocky Mountains News trying to get a band started.
With this in mind, Kijak filtered the awkward kisses, chain-smoking profanity and harsh realizations of his evolving characters through Denver native Hall. The record store where hostage-taker Dean worked became Wax Trax Records, a punk and indie haven that’s still open at 638 E. 13th St. The bar where the four friends hung out became Muddy’s Java Café, formerly at 2200 Champa St., and a third-act, after-hours gay club became The Grove.
The animating event, The Smiths breakup, happened a year before the Colorado incident, so the story was moved to 1987. But with 30% of the film’s $3 million budget devoted to music — “Shoplifters” features a whopping 20 Smiths songs, many of which have never been licensed for the screen — Kijak wasn’t able to film on location. Historical research of 1980s Denver led him to stand-in cities in upstate New York, such as Albany, Troy, Niskayuna and Colonie, according to The Albany Times Union.
“Parts of upstate New York are in a total time warp,” Kijak said. “I worked at a record store like Wax Trax in high school, and we found a good spiritual cousin for it. All we needed at most spots
was a poster, a few busted couches, old books and a brick wall. We found these very specific kind of places, but had to change the names.”
Muddy’s transformed, again, into The Ritz — a nod to The Smiths’ first venue in Man
chester, and one of many Easter eggs in the movie. Other locations lost their specific Denver monikers, too, although the film is still set here. One of the characters, Sandi, hails from Arvada, and stray neighborhood references litter the dialogue. But the blighted suburban ennui, so familiar to Gen-Xers and early millennials, is nowhere near specific to Denver.
“It is a bit of myth-making, but with a real foundation and real truth that hopefully makes it a little more universal,” Kijak said.
High-level music industry connections from his documentary work gave Kijak access to Morrissey and Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr (already a friend), whom he petitioned for music rights. “The journey to lock down the soundtrack,” as press materials called it, took a full decade. But even after securing those, the director was reluctant to cater the movie to fans.
“One of the producers thought about going for band member cameos, but it was too much,” Kijak said. “The closest we came was getting David Johansen
(New York Dolls), but he backed out at the last minute. As luck would have it, he reached out to Jose Maldonado, a.k.a. The Mexican Morrissey (of the Sweet and Tender Hooligans, a Smiths cover band), so he’s in there. And Thomas Lennon (‘The State,’ ‘Reno 911!’) was in his band, so he plays the record store owner.”
Also in the film is a warm, funny Joe Manganiello (as the metalhead radio DJ), Ellar Coltrane (star of the Oscar-winning 2014 film “Boyhood”), and Helena
Howard, Elena Kampouris, James Bloor and Nick Krause as the grieving Smiths obsessives.
The film’s loose interpretation of the ’80s is scrubbed clean of mindless shorthand for the decade, an intentional effort by Kijak to make it feel more like coming-of-age films “American Graffiti” and “Diner” than “Pump Up the Volume” — though all feel represented in the referenceheavy scenes.
At its gently broken heart, “Shoplifters” retains many of the original heartbreaks and realizations based on Kijak’s youth.
“That question — ‘Who am I? What I am?’ — is central,” he said. “I was a closeted gay kid who didn’t come out until he was in college, so The Smiths and music in general gave us things to imitate and ways to be that were ‘othered.’ It was a badge, and armor, and how we found each other. The ’80s were so gay, but it was subculturally gay. We wanted to avoid the clichéd jocks vs. weirdos story because in my world, there was a lot of blur.”
“Shoplifters of the World” premieres in theaters and on-demand video platforms on March 26, although no Denver theaters are showing it as of press time.