I dig music! (Almost Famous (DVD))

Member Name: george_lazenby

Product:	Almost Famous (DVD)
Date:	11/02/01 (70 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very funny, very persuasive

Disadvantages: Just a bit too nice

All of Cameron Crowe's movies are incredibly warm and fuzzy, and all of the conflicts and tragedies within them are resolved without the usual pain and suffering you get in dramas. In 'Singles' even a miscarriage is ultimately swept away in the final romantic conclusion.

The other consistent element in all Crowe's movies is a use of pop music. 'Jerry Maguire' was full of chirpy romantic pop, John Cusack resolved his problems with Ione Skye by playing Peter Gabriel outside her house in 'Say Anything', and 'Singles' was set in the Seattle grunge scene. This is no surprise, as Crowe started as a teenage rock journalist for Rolling Stone in the Seventies.

These two elements combine in 'Almost Famous', his fourth film, a comedy which revolves pretty closely around the early events of Crowe's career. I listened with increasing frustration to a Radio Four review of the film, as it was evident that they didn't have a clue how much it was based on the truth. Crowe's perspective is certainly romantic and nostalgic, but the facts are fairly clear.

He did write for Rolling Stone in his mid-teens, he was deflowered by three groupies, and he did become friends with some of the biggest rock stars of the seventies. Obviously, names have been changed - the film's hero is called William Miller, the up-and-coming band he follows are a fictional (but completely believeable) group called Stillwater, but his mentor is the real life rock critic Lester Bangs (played brilliantly by Philip Seymour Hoffman), and real figures like Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner and David Bowie flash across the background.

The problem with the film? It is too nice. It's like an anti-Spinal Tap, with everyone committed and soulful despite their human failings. Crowe obviously had a fabulous time in the seventies (who wouldn't if this was your life), and 'Almost Famous' represents his attempt
to counter all of the pictures painted by other, darker movies. In this sense, the film is almost too nice, too bubblegum, and the real tragedies (attempted suicide is one example) are slightly too neatly resolved.

Indeed, though the tensions between the uptight front man (Jason Lee) and enigmatic lead guitarist (Billy Crudup) are hilariously depicted, it takes a random event, shoehorned into the plot to bring them truly to the surface. In Spike Lee's film about the mechanics at work in a band 'Mo Better Blues', these tensions are vicious and bitter and ultimately irresolvable.

But this is a symptom of the fact that Crowe likes his characters, and this does make for a very engaging film. Everyone in the movie, from the principal characters to the walk-ons have decently characterised, well-written parts. And even though this is a film about rock musicians and groupies and journalists, one of the biggest parts is given to Frances McDormand as William's awkward, vaguely repressive mother. Rarely has someone so uncool, so unrebellious been given such a fair crack of the whip, and I can't remember the last time I saw a movie in which the love between mother and son was shown to be so valuable, so important and so worthwhile.

All of the actors are superb - Jason Lee is predictably hilarious, Hoffman and McDormand as good as ever, but the trio of leads have the glory. Billy Crudup, who is still feeling his way towards superstardom, actually makes a moustache seem sexy, while Kate Hudson (whose rise to stardom is a lot more meteoric than Crudup's) makes a moving contribution as the 'band-aid' Penny Lane - although sometimes she sounds exactly like her mother Goldie Hawn, and it's freaky. The best performance comes from Patrick Fugit as the Crowe figure William, expressing all the frustration and excitement of a teenage boy thrust into such a wild world.

Crowe really does convey the passions and attrac
tions of rock music, and though he obviously has no objective perspective on the seventies - he just loved them - he is humane enough to see his world from all the angles. He doesn't deify Stillwater, but he doesn't depict them as shallow rocker morons either.

This is a very funny, very warm film, even for a die-hard cynic like me. With all the dross we get from Hollywood every week, it's nice to see a film put together with such care, and achieving its targets so precisely.

Go and see it.

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