“It was such a shock for me to become a pop star, it’s not what I wanted. I just wanted to scream,” Sinead O’connor’s enchanting voice says through the speakers of the IFC theater. Nothing Compares by break out director Kathryn Ferguson isn’t your average biopic documentary. The film recounts the Irish musician’s exceptional rise to international fame and her sudden exile from mainstream pop. Something to note is that the film features no talking head segments with the various people interviewed. In the Q&A after with Ferguson, she reveals this was meant “to keep [the audience] there, in the moment.” This also allows for the audience to finally “hear Sinead in her own words,” Ferguson says, a counter to the reductive media O’connor battled in the 90s. Ferguson maintains this more artistic feel, especially earlier in the film. Although the film is about 70% archival footage there is very little footage of O’connor’s early life. Ferugson and her crew shot their own breathtaking archival footage to illustrate O’connor’s harrowing upbringing in Ireland and create a more cinematic experience for the viewer.
The film is able to bring O’connor into the 21st spotlight by analyzing her life through a contemporary feminist lens. The scene of O’connor’s at the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary concert is tragic; her face is tight and the audience is a mix of boos and cheers. In contrast the film ends with a compilation of 21st activism in the US and Ireland (like the 2017 Women’s March and Appeal the 8th) as well as a recent live performance by O’Connor. Ferguson wanted to leave the audience feeling galvanized. The mission of the movie, Ferguson says, is to “inspire youngsters to stand up and make a change because, Christ, we need it right now.”
