The Safdie Brothers’ bank heist-gone-wrong film Good Time, the latest edition to the HEAR MY EYES performance series and part of Melbourne’s RISING Festival, is transformed into an all-encompassing experience of the senses with a new soundtrack performed live by Big Yawn and Teether.

Held at the Melbourne Recital Centre, this rendition of HEAR MY EYES features 2017’s Good Time, accompanied by an experimental collaboration between the Melbourne artists, electronic group Big Yawn and rapper Teether. Before the film starts we are introduced to the artists, who perform a song together before the lights on the stage are dimmed to a dark blue hue as the movie begins. This stylistic choice helped create the atmosphere that made the show so captivating even before the film started rolling.

Good Time revolves around brothers Connie (Robert Pattinson) and Nick (Benny Safdie–also one of the directors) as they try to escape their unfulfilling lives–particularly, Nick’s forced participation in uncomfortable medical interventions for his intellectual disability–by getting money fast. Things go wrong almost instantly. For the next hour or so we watch Connie make a string of poor decisions in a frantic attempt to get his brother out of jail that are both stress-inducing and even comedic in moments. Pattinson plays the manipulative, impulsive Connie unnervingly well, so unlikeable in moments, yet we find ourselves rooting for him anyway. The film, especially in the first twenty minutes, is incredibly fast-paced, and Big Yawn and Teether maximize the tension with their score, with their original tracks easily keeping pace with the film’s events. Big Yawn were each excellent on their own kits but also synchronous in their delivery.

Although most of the music used to complement the film is instrumental, allowing the characters’ lines to be heard without interruption, Good Time features a lot of scenes where we simply watch events unfold without dialogue–this is where Teether comes in. During intense moments, like the prison sequence where Nick is attacked and violently beaten by other inmates, Teether rejoins at the front of the stage with haunting, yet subtle vocals. Teether’s stage presence even without the spotlight on him is mesmerizing to watch.

Big Yawn and Teether create a score that, although distinct from the original, easily stacks up. The experience of watching them onstage just underneath the view of the film screen is easily as entertaining as the film itself. I was already a huge fan of Good Time on its own, but the experience of HEAR MY EYES elevates the film tenfold.