The Go-Betweens: Right Here (2017) User Reviews

Very good documentary on one of Australia's best bands of all time

[Jeremy_Urquhart · 8/10 · 8 July 2021]

Surprisingly great, although I may be biased as a fan of the band. While I do love a lot of their music, their entire history wasn't something I was familiar with, so it was nice to hear about that whilst also having a large number of interviewees gush about how good their music was.

Some people may not love all the ways the filmmakers chose to keep things visually interesting when there was no archive footage to rely on, but I thought it mostly worked, and felt within the spirit of the band's music.

Also very emotional at times- The Go-Betweens had a turbulent history, and this documentary is at its best when it dives into such events with honesty and sincere emotion.

As a Fan It Worked for Me - And Then Some

[Marc_Horrickan · 8/10 · 19 October 2018]

The Go-Betweens were a band I cam to in the late nineties, unaware that they were, at that stage, disbanded. There return in the early 2000s was one of the more remarkable pop-rock stories of the period, especially as the quality of Forster and McLennan's songwriting had, if anything, got better. Kriv Stenders' documentary on the trials and tribulations of this genuinely unique Australian band, manages to be both a great primer for someone who knows nothing about The Go-Betweens, and also a nicely gossipy behind the scenes look at one of the messier and incestuous group dynamics.

'Cattle and Cane' is the song that really propelled the band to a different critical space in the canon of Australian popular music. It also marked the point where Grant McLennan became his friend Robert Forster's song-writing equal. There is a great moment in the doc where Forster talks about his late friend as going from the rear-view mirror to driving alongside him and then speeding off into the distance. It is a neat analogy that hints at so much of the creative tension that inspired and destroyed the band.

By far and away the best interview subject is drummer Lindy Morrison, who spent some time as Forster's girlfriend/muse, and comes across as a genuinely complex and intensely creative force of nature, who felt increasingly maligned and marginalised within the group. The straight-forward chronological structure of the film actually works well to show how the band's sound develops over time and Stenders' knows exactly what tracks to place on the soundtrack for maximum effect. All in all, this is an enjoyable and detailed account of a band that never quite managed to be as big as they perhaps could have been, but left behind them a significant body of work.