We all know that feeling of hearing a song from childhood and being instantly transported back in time, right? Well, that rush of nostalgia is at the heart of Australian filmmaker Daley Pearson’s new Netflix feature Allen, which takes audiences on a trip back to the ’90s.
The latest project from the studio behind the global phenomenon that is Bluey is packed with everything from Goosebumps books and Ninja Turtles toys to Cheezels, Bubble O’ Bill ice creams, and a soundtrack featuring some of the era’s most recognisable music.
But beneath all the nostalgic references is a more personal story about memory, loss, and the things we should, or shouldn’t, hold onto as we grow up. Music, Pearson tells Rolling Stone AU/NZ, was one of the most important pieces of that puzzle.
“To begin with, everything,” he smiles as he explains just how big an influence music had on the film. “Music’s like a perfume. It takes you straight back there.”
His sentiment would resonate with anyone who’s ever heard an old favourite and suddenly found themself remembering a particular place, person, or moment in their life. Recreating that feeling, he explains, meant filling his new film – his first live-action feature – with songs that were not only familiar, but personally meaningful.
Allen features music from Billy Joel, Michael Jackson, Annie Lennox and Bette Midler, alongside references to Pocahontas and unmistakably ’90s advertising (“With Mentos, fresh and full of life!”).
While there are plenty of big hits in the mix, Pearson was just as interested in capturing the joy of rediscovering something audiences might have forgotten they loved.
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“I talked about it with the gang, when we were making it, and you know, Michael Jackson is someone huge, but we wanted stuff you forgot you remember, you know, when you hear it, you’re like, ‘Oh, yeah’,” he says.
“We wanted that more so than the big hitters. And so it was so important to have those specific songs. They meant something to me too, personally. Like I said, when I hear them, a lot of memories come with them.”
Take Bette Midler’s “From a Distance”, for example. A song that immediately takes Pearson back to his childhood. “It zapped me straight back,” he laughs.
Of course, bringing so many recognisable songs and cultural references together was no small task. Pearson credits producers Sam Moor and Ross Allsop, along with the film’s legal team, for helping secure the rights to the music and ’90s memorabilia, ensuring even the smallest details felt authentic.
Beyond the soundtrack, Pearson was also interested in exploring the more complicated side of looking back, particularly how holding onto the past can sometimes prevent us from moving forward.
Set in Queensland’s coastal town of Coolum, Allen follows Petey (played by TJ Power), whose childhood best friend was an alien who mysteriously disappeared without saying goodbye. Twenty years later, Allen unexpectedly returns, forcing Petey to confront a past he’s never quite managed to leave behind.
Pearson admits his own relationship with nostalgia helped shape the story, particularly as he began to realise that his attachment to certain songs, films, and childhood trinkets was about much more than the objects themselves.
“I started to realise that all this stuff, the Happy Meal toys, the music, the movies, I wasn’t loving them in and of itself,” he reflects.
“It was more about how watching it brought back the people I watched it with, and the family that we were then, or the friends I had then.”
Allen is now streaming on Netflix.
