Cast

Michael Cera, Alison Pill, Mark Webber, Johnny Simmons, Ellen Wong, Kieran Culkin, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ben Lewis, Nelson Franklin

Film description

Bryan Lee O’Malley’s six-tome graphic novel about Scott Pilgrim is one of the biggest pop-culture phenomena of the last decade. Each successive edition published by the independent Oni Press increased its number of fans, with the entire run of the sixth and final issue published in July 2010 selling out in several days.

The titular hero is an average 22-year-old short on dreams or aspirations. He sleeps, cruises town alone or with friends, getting his kicks flirting with girls, staying up all night playing videogames and bass in a garage band. All that changes when he meets Ramona, the woman of his dreams (literally!). But to be with her, he must first defeat her seven evil exes.

Edgar Wright’s film stays true to O’Malley’s comic world, in homage to comics, old school videogames, independent music, and the love story, while the director mixes in some of his own fascinations, e.g. Bollywood, Asian action films, and sitcoms.

This explosive mix is encrusted with tons of cultural references and maintains a breakneck pace, caffeinated by an editing that often imitates the structure of a comics page and great soundtrack, written especially for the film by Beck, Broken Social Scene, and Nigel Godrich (producer for e.g. Radiohead).

Szymon Holcman