DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER
Cameron Crowe
PRODUCERS
Cameron Crowe
Ian Bryce
CINEMATOGRAPHER
John Toll
MUSIC
Nancy Wilson
EDITOR
Joe Hutshing
CAST
Patrick Fugit (William)
Frances McDormand (Elaine)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Lester Bangs)
Kate Hudson (Penny Lane)
Billy Crudup (Russell)
Jason Lee (Jeff)
Anna Paquin (Polexia)
Zooey Deschanel (Anita)
Fairuza Balk (Sapphire)
MPAA rating: R
Running
time: 122m (theatrical
cut)
U.S. release: September 15, 2000
Video availability: VHS - DVD
Official
website
Other Cameron
Crowe movies
reviewed on this website:
- Vanilla
Sky
|
"Be
honest and unmerciful," says the revered rock critic Lester
Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to the budding 15-year-old writer
William Miller (Patrick Fugit) near the beginning of Almost
Famous. That's sound advice; it's too bad more movie critics
aren't following it. Perhaps it's no mystery: Almost Famous,
the new film by Cameron Crowe (Say Anything..., Singles,
Jerry Maguire), is nothing if not a valentine to critics
-- flattery of their innocence and integrity in the face of self-promoting
rock bands, actors, or movie directors. If Lester Bangs had covered
movies instead of music and had lived to see this one, he would've
known what to make of it.
It needs to be said that Almost Famous is by no means
a bad film -- just a middling, loudly overpraised one (it's being
heralded as Cameron Crowe's epic or masterpiece, or something).
The movie, as you may have heard, is based on Crowe's own experiences
as a teen rock journalist in the early '70s, writing for Rolling
Stone and meeting the rock gods of the day. Crowe's onscreen
surrogate is William, who squirms away from his well-meaning
but overprotective mom (Frances McDormand, never once allowing
her role to devolve into a stereotype) and spends some time on
the road with an emerging, nothing-special band called Stillwater.
The wide-eyed William (whose portrayer, Patrick Fugit, must have
been cast for his whitebread inoffensiveness to most demographics)
is a more or less passive observer as the band members taste
a few drops of fame -- they're opening for Black Sabbath -- but
are always on the verge of splitting up. The tipping point comes
when the band's t-shirt design favors Stillwater's guitarist
(Billy Crudup) over its lead singer (Jason Lee). Crowe may have
actually witnessed such inane backstage hissy fits in his day,
but unfortunately for him, the mock-rockumentary This Is Spinal
Tap scooped him on the absurdity of rock egos by about fifteen
years.
Almost Famous isn't only about that, though -- it's also
about maintaining one's purity in the face of temptation: sex,
drugs, fame, adulation. William hangs out a lot with a Stillwater
hanger-on, a girl calling herself Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), who
leads a pack of groupies who delude themselves that they aren't
groupies. I got a little restless as the familiar plot mechanics
kicked into gear, setting up Penny as William's first great love,
who is drawn to the bad-boy excitement of rock stars but longs
for a sweet, tender boy like William. And, by extension, like
Crowe. And, by further extension, like the critics he's flattering.
Yes, movie critics, that sexy blonde may lust after bad boys,
but deep down she's really waiting for you.
As an admirer of Crowe's earlier films, I was more than eager
to see his new one, but Almost Famous lacks dramatic focus.
Crowe's gentleness as a writer, so warming and refreshing in
his romantic comedies, doesn't help him much in this chaotic,
post-Altamont rock milieu. In part, the movie is a love letter
to Crowe's remarkable adolescence, and I can accept that. But
he softens just about everything, as if he didn't want to hurt
the feelings of anyone he knew back then. Autobiography shackles
him; he has more freedom with characters he creates out of whole
cloth. Penny Lane, for instance, is seen entirely through a gauze
of affectionate memory, and Kate Hudson's glimmer of adorableness
dims after about half an hour; Hudson may be quirky enough to
do something more interesting than this, but the evidence isn't
here.
On the road, William keeps calling his mentor, Lester Bangs,
who advises him to ward off the fake friendship musicians use
to suck in journalists. (Philip Seymour Hoffman, in his few minutes
as Bangs, gives the movie some badly needed jolts of complexity
and tension.) Almost Famous is a form of fake friendship,
too; it wants us to believe we've been there with
Crowe and shared a moment, but it offers little more insight
than a typical Ron Howard film. Here's a movie about a nice young
man who meets a bunch of mostly nice people (even the jerks are
basically harmless) and has nice adventures. The entire enterprise
is too nice, too looking-back-fondly, too willing to let
its characters and its audience off the hook. Almost Famous
doesn't pretend to be journalism, but it could've used a little
more Lester Bangs in its soul. |
