Felix van Groeningen’s Belgica is essentially a tale of two brothers who don’t know when the party is over. There’s Jo (Stef Aerts) the self-effacing, quietly confident bar manager, and his older brother Frank (Tom Vermeir), who’s reminiscent of an over-excited character from a Eugene O’Neill play: a middle-aged white man who is constantly banging on about pipe dreams and drinking far too much booze.

Frank’s bored of his home life, which consists of working at a used car lot and helping his wife out at the kennels, and wants some ‘rock’n’roll’ in his life. He decides Jo’s bar is the place to find that and, even though he can’t pour a pint, he throws in with his brother and sets about turning the bar into a club.

Havin’ it large: Belgica Photograph: Thomas Dhanens

There’s a motley crew of cohorts who help with the heavy lifting, as the two brothers convert Belgica – which at that point is a run-down smoky bar frequented by vagrants and smells of drains – into a kind of Flemish Hacienda. When things seem to be going awry, Frank even greases the palm of a draconian safety officer who’s non-plussed with their fire exits. Once up and running, the pair make a success of it, while hoovering up an amount of cocaine that would make Tony Montana wince.

Fellow Belgians Soulwax worked on the soundtrack, and created several fictitious bands who play at the club and make up the soundtrack. With names such as Burning Phlegm, Roland Macbeth and the excellent Davy Coppens and The Shitz, they punctuate the action with brilliant nuggets of psychobilly, electroclash and disco. With that as backing, van Groeningen manages to capture the nihilistic revelry of truly messy nights out, which begin to catch up on Frank who, half way through the film, seems to forget he’s got a pregnant wife and a small child at home.

Lashings of adultery, domestic violence, horrendous business acumen and more cocaine see the brothers butt heads and rather predictably fall out. It’s at that point van Groeningen switches things up. Instead of a morality tale about excess and its certain fatal consequences, things look a lot more like real life. Jo and Frank attempt to work out their differences. Characters who were the life and soul of the party aren’t dead or in prison, they’re at an art gallery looking decidedly middle class, and finally there’s a realisation that things have to slow down. Anyone who has pushed things a bit too far, and woken up with one too many “wtf” mornings, will appreciate how close Belgica has got to replicating hedonism going off the rails.