This Search for Meaning review – slick reminder of radical rockers Placebo

This slick unrevealing music documentary about alt rockers Placebo highlights the potential drawbacks of making a film about a band decades after their first flush. Back in the late 90s, even if you weren’t blown away by the music, you had to admire Placebo’s bravura and the feral energy of frontman Brian Molko. Today he sits in a studio with the expression of a cat that got the cream, insisting that he is not fussed about fame or celebrity – a statement slightly undermined by the fact he’s wearing sunglasses indoors.

The point is that it can be easy to mock middle-aged rockers as self-indulgent or smug – and Molko sometimes makes it very easy (“I seek total freedom from the bourgeois constructs that exist in society”). But film-maker Oscar Sansom dusts off the archive footage for a reminder of what a radical proposition Placebo felt like to their fans when they released their self-titled first album in 1996. This was at the fag-end of macho Britpop, and Molko was taking to the stage wearing dresses and eyeliner. A couple of eye-opening clips are a reminder of just how hostile the industry was at the time to gender fluidity and queerness. “Have a look at the singer. Is it a bloke or is it a girl?” gawps one presenter.

There are polite, bland interviews here with Molko and his bandmate Stefan Olsdal, and chats with some famous fans. Dominic Harrison AKA Yungblud talks about the connection he felt to Placebo aged 13 putting on makeup in his bedroom: “You looked like what I wanted to be.” Benedict Cumberbatch says not very much in the back of a taxi. Surveillance culture is one of the band’s interests, so the celebrity interviews are shot to look like CCTV. My favourite footage is of David Bowie, who took a shine to the band early on – and gives a handy demonstration of how to age with silliness, style and serious creative gravity every time he appears on screen.