2000’s “Almost Famous”, written and directed by Cameron
Crowe.
Starring Patrick Fugit, Frances McDormand, Zoeey Deschanel, Philip
Seymour-Hoffman, Billy Crudup, Jason Lee, Noah Taylor, Jimmy Fallon, Kate
Hudson, Anna Paquin, and Fairuza Balk.
Winner of an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress (Hudson),
Best Supporting Actress (McDormand), and Best Editing (Joe Hatching, Saar
Klein).
As a youth, director Cameron Crowe was quite academically
advanced, and skipped past kindergarten and 2 grades, leading to him being
significantly younger than his classmates. Feeling alienated from his older peers, he began writing for the school newspaper and fell into writing for
the rock magazine, Rolling Stone. Despite his teenage age, he fooled everyone
that he was an adult, as he wrote about touring with the Allman Brothers Band,
as well as Led Zepplin, The Eagles, and Lynard Skynard. “AF” is his loosely
based tribute to this time in his life.
In “AF”, during the 1970’s we meet a young Crowe (Fugit),
who’s overbearing and vigilant mother (McDormand) forbids rock music and it’s
freewheeling lifestyle. His sister bails the family home with her boyfriend to
become a stewardess- but not before leaving behind the devil’s influence in the
form of rock records under Fugit’s bed.
He
falls in love with writing for the music scene, and finds a tutor in the form
of Seymour-Hoffman, an angry rock music critic for Creem magazine, who provides
impassioned but cynical advice for Fugit. While on assignment for Creem, Fugit
gets in with the band, Stillwater (based loosely on The Allman Brothers Band),
before getting hired for Rolling Stone magazine. While on tour, Fugit’s youthful
innocence and naiveté don’t stand a chance, as he gets sucked into the band’s
vortex of chaos. Constantly being promised an interview that will happen at the
next destination, while he tries to write an article that constantly gets
derailed by the drama around him, all while giving his overbearing mother a
nervous breakdown.
Distracted by crushes, false friendships, and the never
ending line up of sycophants vying for the band member’s time, Fugit has to
grow up fast. In particular, he falls hard for the Hudson character, a member of
the “band aids”: groupies who deny being groupies to the band(s), but are just
that. Fugit, Hudson, and the band’s most charismatic member (Crudup), form a
sort of triangle, and both of them take turns mentoring Fugit, constantly
selling the image of the party that never stops, for a family that never gives
up on each other. Here, Crowe lovingly creates a world that is a testament to
the constant push and pull of the spirit of the artistic process, set against
the grinding gears of commercialism. Time and time again, Fugit’s journalist
character is derided as “the enemy” by the various members of the band, while
Fugit is warned by Seymour-Hoffman that the band’s intentions lack
authenticity. Crowe skillfully balances a truckload of relationship dynamics,
from the band’s various members infighting, to the family dynamics of
McDermond, Deschanel, and Fugit, to Fugit and Crudup’s mentoring/mentoree, to
Hudson and Crudup’s road love story, among larger issues such as the band’s
struggling to deal with success, and the band aid’s frustrations at not being
more than just poker antes for various bands. While Hudson’s character can be
quite grating at times (what Nathan Rabin calls a, “Manic Pixie Dream Girl”),
the rest of the characters in “AF” are wonderfully drawn out, with tons of
awesome cameos thrown in (Marc Maron and Jimmy Fallon are amazing). The
soundtrack is a killer, and at the end of the journey, we see why these
characters do the things they do, and what really matters to them. It’s a
delight to echo what so many of the 70’s flower children repeat in this film,
“It’s all happening”. And working well, man.
4/5
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