RATING
Director: Matt Johnson
Country: United States
Writers: Matt Johnson, Jay McCarrol, Jared Raad
Actors: Matt Johnson, Jay McCarrol, Ben Petrie
Written by Tom Augustine.
It is clear that, as with most comedies, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie excels when seen with a crowd, something that the film’s already burgeoning cult status can attest to, as legend of rowdy, uproarious screenings spread far and wide. Is a comedy’s true worth revealed in its transition to the small screen? Not necessarily, but it helps. If we consider the proud tradition of cult status in cinema, so many of these films grew and established themselves outside of the traditional cinema space — for a comedy to thrive sans the presence of a massive crowd speaks to its durability. Thankfully, the newest underground cult sensation sits comfortably in that crowd — I lamented my inability to make the heaving screenings at the Hollywood Avondale, and was somewhat nervous to see if it held up in screening it ahead of its premiere this month on Rialto Channel. What a joy to find that, upon watching by myself at home, I still found myself in fits of laughter. If, like me, you had some dim awareness of the emergence of a new underground comedy hit that you just had to watch, here at last is another chance.
I had no real awareness of Nirvanna the Band the Show, the Canadian webseries turned Viceland series that chronicled the Sisyphean attempts of musicians Matt (Matt Johnson) and Jay (Jay McCarrol) to play a show at Toronto’s famed underground music venue the Rivoli before this year, with the advent of this low-budget feature adaptation. Naturally, with the movement from TV series to feature, there’s some apprehension that the uninitiated will be subjected to what is essentially an extended inside joke that you’re not in on. This is the challenge and great surprise of Nirvanna…the Movie, a film that seems aware of this contradiction to such a painful degree that its very structure, a kind of ouroboros leading its leads back to encounter the original, younger versions of themselves via suspiciously Back to the Future-esque time travel scheme, contends with in directly. The result is, at once, a speed-run initiation for newbies and a reward for underground comedy enthusiasts already up with the times. Contradiction is the core element of the film: it is a work at once bristling with ambition both narrative and technological, and a smell-of-an-oily-rag operation constantly drawing attention to where its seams are showing. It is a film that pulses with love for its setting — the frequently anonymous Toronto, the site of many a Hollywood production. And it is a film that provides genuine pathos while reminding the viewer not to take anything within it too seriously. The result: a cult comedy that lives up to the hubbub.
Premiering exclusively on Rialto Channel this month, 2026’s emerging cult comedy favourite is one that retains its shambolic magic on the small screen. Matt Johnson’s madcap time-travel comedy reveals layers of sweetness as it goes along, while flexing an at-times uncanny technical daring that belies its indie foundations.
The film finds Matt and Jay, seventeen years on from their first ‘plan’ to play the Rivoli, still desperately trying to find their way to a gig — one of the great ongoing gags being that it has never occurred to them to just contact the Rivoli directly and, y’know, ask. Instead, ideas man Matt, clad in an hilariously uncouth fedora, and genuine musical talent Jay, consistently embroil themselves in ridiculous schemes, frequently evoking Jackass and the work of Nathan Fielder in its utilisation of improv and interaction with the public. In Nirvanna…the Movie, these plans reach appropriately bombastic highs, beginning with Matt’s most ambitious plan yet — to skydive into Toronto’s SkyDome Arena from the CN Tower to announce a forthcoming show they haven’t actually organised, yet (‘if you build it, they will come’, Matt frequently intones, in lieu of an actual booking). The astonishing endpoint of that gambit kickstarts the film’s emotional core, which is the regret of artists who are aging and have not yet found success. McCarrol, a remarkable multi-hyphenate performer, has begun to consider the cost of having stuck by his hapless friend all these years instead of making a go of it himself. As Matt lays into a new plan — building a fake time machine to pretend that a show at the Rivoli is of world-saving importance, Jay secretly plans to abandon Matt altogether. The only thing is, Matt’s time machine actually works, and the pair are blasted back to 2008, to the beginning of the Nirvanna the Band journey.
To be clear, this is obviously an incredibly silly film. Johnson (whose directorial work beyond Nirvanna is remarkably eclectic, encompassing biopics like Blackberry and Tony and documentaries like Operation Avalanche) is clearly suited to this film’s seat-of-the-pants verite style, has a Simpsons-esque understanding of the importance a gag-per-minute joke rate. Endearingly, this is a film that has no strict style of gag — there is hilarious slapstick, frequent uproarious moments of improvised dialogue, and razor-sharp industry satire nestled within the film’s many genuinely astonishing setpieces. As much as this is a silly film, it is also a technical marvel — there are myriad moments within Nirvanna…the Movie that had me scratching my head, wondering just how they achieved it without the help of a blockbuster budget. The enthusiasm with which the filmmakers have tackled this passion project is infectious, with a throw-everything-at-the-wall attitude that is sure to be moving for any filmmaker frustrated by the chasm between ambition and means. That the film holds such multitudes is a mark of its quality — that it can be enjoyed as a pure, uninhibited laugh machine is what cements it as a rewatchable future standard. As the credits rolled on Nirvanna… the Movie, I found myself rewinding and starting all over. In the process of writing this review, I have failed to resist the urge to scroll through and find particular moments of hilarity (including a fall-down funny moment of fourth-wall breaking) several times. If this is a capstone on a series I’ve never watched — and which, surely, the majority of those seeking this film out also haven’t watched — the fact that I regarded the characters with the fondness of familiarity almost immediately surely suggests that there’s more juice to be squeezed. If not, we can be glad that this film somehow, improbably, exists, to be enjoyed over and again.
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (dir. Matt Johnson) 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗦𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝗔𝘂𝗴𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝟮𝟮, 𝟴:𝟯𝟬𝗣𝗠 on Sky’s Rialto Channel, or catch up anytime on Sky Go.