Get your own Free Home Page
Nostalgia is tricky business. Every decade to come along since the onset of mass media-driven culture gets revived periodically, the first time usually when the kids who helped shape it are post-grads finally making enough money to enjoy it ten years after the fact, by which time their young successors have embraced new trends now distasteful to domesticated sensibilities. But the only thing that gets passé more quickly than a transient pop idiom is a worn-out retro resurrection.
Writer/director Cameron Crowe would be taking a big chance by following the successful Hollywood conventionality of his last film, Jerry Maguire, with a deeply personal autobiographical excursion back to the 70s. Ask a dozen people what they think of Rock 101’s diet of classic Pink Skynyrd and Whoman Brothers and you’ll likely find most opinions staked out at the extremes of the love/hate spectrum. With no Tom Cruise or comparable marquee figure this time out, Crowe might find himself buried under an avalanche of critical Frisbees flung both by 70s apostles and detractors if he didn’t get the look and feel of the era just right.
He can relax. In conveying an only slightly fictionalized version of his youthful baptism of fire, Almost Famous succeeds, mainly because it adheres to the most important rule of filmmaking: write what you know.
Crowe’s cinematic alter ego is William Miller (big-screen newcomer Patrick Fugit), a wunderkind journalist whose pieces in a hometown San Diego underground paper earn him a call from Rolling Stone to chronicle the travails of up-and-coming rock band Stillwater. Despite severe protestation from a mother (Frances McDormand) who’s so overly protective – actually, that doesn’t do her justice. Norman Bates’ mom was overly protective; Mrs. Miller fears Simon & Garfunkel are the Antichrist and false prophet. Somehow William secures permission anyway to embark on an odyssey that will not only cross much geographic territory but sizable emotional divides as well.
Though preternaturally gifted at wordsmithing, William suffers all the physical and social maladroitness of a gangly teen suddenly dropped into road life with his musical heroes. Stillwater, whose exploits are an amalgam of events Crowe witnessed with Led Zeppelin and the Eagles, among others, hardly welcome the intrusion. Weathering their own growing pains in the form of a feuding singer (Jason Lee) and guitarist (Billy Crudup), they’re wary of such high-profile scrutiny. But William’s wide-eyed ingenuousness disarms their suspicions, placing him in the unwelcome strait of either protecting the image of his idols-turned-friends, or, as his mentor, legendary rock writer Lester Bangs (played with gripping alienation by Philip Seymour Hoffman; by the way, if you care to read the greatest collection of music essays ever, find a copy of Bangs’ Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung) counsels, being “honest and unmerciful.” If that weren’t enough, he’s also falling in love with Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), angelic leader of a tribe of groupies that includes flamboyantly named Polexia (Anna Paquin) and Sapphire (Fairuza Balk).
All of which is, to some extent, not as important as the fact that this film recreates the feel of the early rock-god half of the 70s much better than some other movies have depicted the decade’s disco-afflicted closing half. A neat period soundtrack comprising seminal FM fare, including rare authorized use of Zeppelin tunes (the first since “Kashmir” turned up in the Crowe-scripted Fast Times at Ridgemont High) as well as Stillwater songs co-written by Pete Frampton (who has a cameo) and Crowe’s wife Nancy Wilson, underscore a time when not only music journalism but the record industry itself was less homogenized. And, in some ways, surprisingly innocent.
Almost Famous does drag in places, and could stand to be a few minutes shorter; there’s some of that Maguirish “you complete me” dialog near the end that should have been trampled underfoot in the editing room. But it’s a treat for anybody looking to fondly recall the era, or simply understand it better. With a good showing at the box office, it could nudge Crudup (Without Limits, Sleepers), who brings more heart to the role than likely would have earlier-attached Brad Pitt, and Hudson (200 Cigarettes, Gossip), who positively glows through her every scene, closer to the A-list. But the most memorable showing comes from Fugit, known until now only for a couple guest shots on “Touched by an Angel,” who ties it all together as the savant William. Filtered through a different persona, such as Stone staffer Ben Fong Torres or Jan Wenner (both of whose characters appear), this reminiscence would have undoubtedly assumed a more jaded tone. As witnessed by a guileless 15-year-old, the waning spirit of the Woodstock generation, here captured fast careening headlong toward a premature demise, has rarely looked more enchanting. B+
Get your own Free Home Page