Director Ross Killeen
Starring Damien Dempsey
Rated PG
Score 5.5/6

The film centres around the music of Irish singer songwriter Damien Dempsey but also turns the lens onto his fans. Every Christmas in Dublin, the crowds gather for Damo’s Christmas gig at Vicar Street. For many, these shows have become a cathartic ritual, a safe space where emotions can be laid bare. Through the prism of the concert, we meet Dempsey and three members of the audience. We hear their stories, unravel their grief and find the light in the darkness through communal art.

If you ever find yourself at a cultural film festival or for that matter any other film festivals I believe that you should watch any of the documentaries about music being screened. Though I do watch a lot of movies based purely on the title, I decided to watch this because it was at the top of a list of movies that I was given of movies that are being screened at the 2022 Irish Film Festival. Now though I wasn’t entirely prepared for the direction the documentary took with the talk of addiction and recovery and now, this is not the sort of thing that you should avoid if you’re having a bad day. I know a lot of you might be assuming this already but I’ll say it anyway, going into this I was completely unfamiliar with director Ross Killeen’s work and to my knowledge I had not heard any music by Damien Dempsey. Even though the documentary was shot in black and white, which I felt came across as a little pretentious but was still a beautifully shot documentary. I loved the opening sequence with the use of the concert footage presumably from one of Dempsey’s Christmas gigs and I have to admit that I rewound Dempsey’s voice over a couple of times before settling in to watch the rest of the movie. With all the talk of addiction it could have been very easy for the filmmakers to take Love Yourself Today down a darker path then they did, though it did come close on a couple occasions.