Almost Famous Review
by Dennis Schwartz (ozus AT sover DOT net)October 19th, 2000
ALMOST FAMOUS (director/writer: Cameron Crowe; cinematographer: John Toll; editors: Saar Klein/Joe Hutshing; cast: Billy Crudup (Russell Hammond), Frances
McDormand (Elaine Miller), Kate Hudson (Penny Lane), Jason Lee (Jeff Bebe), Patrick Fugit (William Miller), Zooey Deschanel (Anita Miller), Fairuza Balk (Sapphire), Anna Paquin (Polexia Aphrodisia) Michael Angarano (Young William), Noah Taylor (Dick Roswell), John Fedevich (Ed Vallencourt), Mak Kozelek (Larry Fellows), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Lester Bangs), Eion Bailey (Jann Wenner), Terry Chen (Ben Fong-Torres), Liz Stauber (Russell's girlfriend); Runtime: 122; DreamWorks; 2000)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Cameron Crowe (Say Anything.../Singles/Jerry Maguire) is the writer-director of his fourth film, an endearing and sleekly fictionalized semiautobiographical coming-of-age rock 'n' roll film, that also explores the ethical relationship of a young aspiring writer to the musicians he covers. Crowe started out as a rock writer at 15 and joined the staff of Rolling Stone when he was 16.
"Almost Famous" knows exactly what buttons to push to engage the audience in its very gentle and touching tale of a 15-year-old precocious San Diego native, the drug-free William Miller (Patrick Fugit), and his flight from his overprotective though loving college professor, mother, Elaine (Frances McDormand), whose role as mother is to warn him not to take drugs. Her strictness chased his older sister (Zooey) out of the house to become a stewardess in 1969, but she leaves her rock collection behind with her brother, thus getting him interested in the music. To explain her reasons for doing what she did, she plays her mother a cut from a Simon and Garfunkel album: "I walked out to look for America." For those with a sense of nostalgia for that period, it was fun looking at how colorful those rock album covers were back then, as William goes through his sister's collection, which includes the artistically designed albums of Led Zeppelin, The Who, and Bob Dylan.
William scores a journalist deal with Rolling Stone magazine, after he sneaks in with the help of some groupies to see Stillwater, after being kicked out by the bouncer to see the real group Black Sabbath. Rolling Stone asks him to write a story about the rising four-man band Stillwater, with its leader, the guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) and singer Jeff Bebe (Jason Lee), on their cross-country 1973 tour. The film is not raucous rock, but offers a sweet view of the music world, pointing out why its popularity is high among adolescents, while also exploring its business side.
The casting was perfecto, not that the acting was necessarily arresting, but it was that everyone seemed natural for their roles and gave expression and a sense of truth to what was happening.
I always enjoy watching Philip Seymour Hoffman perform and was very pleased with him in this role, here he has a small supporting role as Lester Bangs, the wizened music critic of a rock magazine called Creem, who acts as a mentor to William. He forms an uncool but smart guy pact with him, warning that commercialism and uncritical journalists will kill this music, which is really dead already but doesn't know it. His caveat to William is: don't make friends with the performers, they are just trying to use you. All you can do is write about them honestly. That will be the mantra of the film and also its hardest attack on the industry, but it is carried out to perfection by this great cast and directed with a sure-hand for drawing out the comedy and whatever goodness there is in the artists and the groupies who follow them.
A large portion of the film is about the groupies who hang around with the musicians, smoking dope and balling them, as this film distinguishes between groupies and "band aids", who claim they are devotees of the music more than they are just in it for the thrill of sleeping with a celebrity. But the film will go on to show that everyone connected with the music is delusional, the musicians are not as serious about their music as they pretend to be and the "band aids" are only fooling themself if they think they're not groupies, as they stroke their unsatisfied egos by basking in the glory of someone else. One such "band aid" is the lovely teenager Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), who is Russell's girl on the road, when his girlfriend is at home. Penny's relationship with William and Russell becomes the focal point of the film, as she lights up the screen with her rich presence and adorable charm.
What William sees on the rock tour is a fantasy world of drugs, easy sex, and an aura of coolness in the band he writes about. He develops a loving relationship with Penny Lane, trying to understand why she does what she does, but is also overawed by the band accepting a square like him into their cool world, which is the natural way for a teen to feel, especially one who comes under the influence of the band'd charismatic leader Russell. He, thusly, fails to heed Lester's advise.
The band considers the journalist the enemy and wish to compromise William so that he will only write a story making them look cool, as they give him access to their lives and expect him to come through for them. While Penny looks to William as an ally, someone she can trust, who is in the same fringe position with the group as she is. She along with two other groupies deflower William, which brings him down to the same level as they are.
This is not a provocative film, as it is a film of small observations as seen through the youngster's eyes and heard on the tape recordings he makes as he interviews them, as he goes backstage, sits with them in their tour bus, swings with the groupies in their hotel, and goes to their parties, witnessing how high they get on mind- altering drugs and sees first-hand how insecure they are as performers. He also corresponds with Rolling Stone, which is on about the same superficial level as the band members as purveyors of hipness, thinking that rock 'n' roll will change the world, though the magazine has the smug belief that they are above the fray.
What I thoroughly enjoyed about the film was the casual way it let its characters act and be themselves, even if it was rehashing characters and rock music scenes played out in many such films, but here it seemed to be very easy to absorb and take in without dissecting that 1970s hippie scene. Instead, it let the story make whatever sense it could without going overboard. I doubt very much if the film caught the full-flavor of that period, but it did catch what it had to, and all the characters avoided falling into being stereotypes.
Billy Crudup is a very fine actor and he is able to be different things to different people in this film without making it seem as if he were disingenuous. To Penny, he is her escape from reality, ditto for William, but to the other band members he's part of their mealticket, but they know that he is only out for himself, while to William's mother, he's a bad influence, someone who advocates the drug music she believes is destroying the younger generation.
The film might not have been flawless, with some mild lapses in character development (groupies were thinly sketched) and the story resolvement was not convincing (a contrived bumpy plane landing scene, where the band fearing death confess what they really think of each other), but the overall zeal of the film overtakes those gaffs and allows the film to be much better than being merely a nostalgia film, and much more entertaining than any serious rock film I have seen. Cameron Crowe seems to have found a niche in making teen films that are much better than teen films. He seems to have an ageless sympathy for teenagers and for those who teens idolize, not categorizing them as either good or bad people. Also, this film is suitable for both parents and kids, R rating or not, which is not an easy chore to accomplish when making a hip film. But moms should like it, as the Frances McDormand characterization was more eccentric and mannered than one-dimensional, and after all, the kid listened to her and didn't take any drugs (at least it wasn't shown in the story). It should also be noted that the director knows his rock music scene and even caught the scene at the now defunct Max's Kansas City, a 1970s rock hangout that freaks like Lou Reed and scores of rockers frequented as their holy shrine, it was one of the famous places in NYC where rockers crossed paths with groupies.
REVIEWED ON 10/12/2000 GRADE: A
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
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