Thanks to Channel 7’s saturation marketing campaign, ads for its upcoming 2-part series, INXS: Never Tear Us Apart, are as ubiquitous as the band itself once was. The mini-series largely focuses on that era when INXS was impossible to ignore – a time when you may not have been a fan of the band, but you did at least form a handy opinion of them, bred from familiarity if nothing else.
That familiarity is part of the appeal of the show, though you are probably just as familiar with the generic beats of the biopic – and you can tick them all off as they fly by in Never Tear Us Apart. Is the band initially surrounded by naysayers? Check. Are they jubilant the first time they hear their song on the radio? Check. Is there a montage of the band playing interchangeable gigs (under scrolling text detailing the venues and dates of said gigs)? Check (and check).
So it’s safe to say that no genres were busted or conventions harmed in the filming of Never Tear Us Apart. Viewers are even treated to a half-hearted and wholly unnecessary framing device, wherein the actors, playing older incarnations of their characters, describe to an interviewer scenes we’ve only just witnessed for ourselves; the sporadic but heavy-handed flashbacks to Formative Adolescent Moments are equally as gratuitous.
And yet, certain touches elevate Never Tear Us Apart to a level beyond mere populist hagiography-plus-boobs or shameless Gen-X nostalgia-bait. (Or cynical marketing ploy – INXS: The Very Best currently sits at number 8 on the ARIA charts.) When traversing as much territory as Never Tear Us Apart does, there is necessarily some reliance on short-hand, and when focusing on the main story, there’s a brisk, infectious energy to much of Daina Reid’s direction. Writers Justin Monjo and Dave Warner have injected several welcome moments of levity into their screenplay and, for all the predictable moments, there are also several interesting tidbits guaranteed to send some viewers scurrying to Google to determine what is and isn’t apocryphal (a surprising amount appears to be true). Plus there’s fun to be had in recognising the perfectly recreated snippets of video clips you once knew well, in identifying an era’s various horrible hairstyles, and in watching the recreation of the most famous interaction between Michael Hutchence and Paula Yates on TV, for example.
It’s also undeniably well cast. As Hutchence, Luke Arnold captures the writhing self-regard that, on stage at any rate, can equate to sex appeal; off-stage, whether you regard Arnold’s oft-flashed smile as a grin or a smirk will probably depend on your preconceptions of the man he’s playing. Andrew Ryan acquits himself well in a largely thankless role as the band’s chief composer and perma-pessimist, Andrew Farriss, and together, the actors playing INXS convey an engagingly lived-in rapport with each other. Samantha Jade makes an sweetly coy, era-appropriate Kylie Minogue, while Georgina Haig nails it as sexy-vulnerable narcissist, Yates.
The standout, however, is Damon Herriman as CM Murphy, the band’s long-time manager and the man ostensibly responsible for much of their international success. While it would arguably be easier to play him than the more instantly recognisable figures that populate the rest of the series, Herriman exudes such steely charisma and iron-clad faith in both INXS and himself that he enlivens every scene he’s in. (For an hilarious and more detailed account of Murphy, see Richard Guilliatt’s article in The Australian of 1 February, which implies that what we get to witness here is the de-Malcolm Tuckered version of the manager’s persona; Murphy is a co-executive producer of Never Tear Us Apart.)
Missed opportunities for more modern approaches to the subject matter aside, Never Tear Us Apart is still entertaining enough to warrant its viewing over a couple of Sunday nights (intersected by what must amount to about 80 minutes of ads throughout its total running time). You may or may not be a fan of the show, but you are all but guaranteed to form a handy opinion of it.
Rating: 3 stars out of 5
INXS: Never Tear Us Apart
Director: Daina Reid
Cast includes: Luke Arnold, Damon Herriman and Andrew Ryan.
INXS: Never Tear Us Apart screens on Channel Seven in two parts: Part One, written by Justin Monjo and Dave Warner, airs on Sunday 8 February at 8.30pm; Part Two, written by Justin Monjo, airs on Sunday 15 February at 8.30pm
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