The familiar story centers on Will Burton (welcome newcomer Gaelan Connell), a put-upon teenage loner with a cleft chin, a mass of curly hair and a permanent pout. But Will is a loner by choice who lives and dies for music, hilariously judges others by their taste in the same and vents his frustrations with the musical illiterates around him in a series of letters to his idol, David Bowie (who has a fun cameo). Will acridly describes high school to his single mother (the sadly underused Lisa Kudrow) as “Novocaine for the soul” but perks up a bit when she announces a move from Cincinnati to Lodi, N.J., and the promise of a fresh start.
At first, things seem to be the same but then Will falls under the speechless spell of Charlotte (Michalka), one of those impossibly stunning blonde popular girls who plays guitar. This one fronts a band of musical misfits (which, surprisingly, doesn’t feature a gay kid) and Charlotte & Co. intend to go head to head with a band headed by her ex-boyfriend Ben (heartthrob Scott Porter) in the hotly competitive statewide battle of the bands contest called Bandslam. She and Will bond over an old Velvet Underground tune (who wouldn’t fall for the ethereal vocal stylings of Nico?) and she recruits him to shape up the band. At the same time, Will is working on a class project with the dark-haired, gorgeous but acerbic Sa5m (“the 5 is silent”) played by Hudgens. The character of Sam (I’m dispensing with the “5”—sorry kids) is basically the same shy but lovable kook played by Ally Sheedy from The Breakfast Club (which, in light of the recent, sudden death of ’80s teen-movie director John Hughes, is a rather bittersweet, serendipitous tribute to him). Sam and Will are meant to be together but it will take a lot of teenage angst—and a slam-bang rockin’ finish—for him to realize that.
Graff (working from an original script by Josh A. Cagan) has a keen ear for dialogue (to be expected from a man who has written everything from the blissful Used People to The Vanishing) and the teenspeak sounds about right and certainly helps overcome the less-than-fresh situations. (The wonderful scene in which Will and Sam make a pilgrimage to the now shuttered legendary punk club CBGB’s is an exception.) And not only does the movie get close to the inherent melodrama of the teen years, the last half with its myriad of plot reversals seems to have been envisioned by a teenager caught up in the primal drama of the high school years.
That’s a backhanded compliment at best as the picture, familiar but energetic up to that point, doesn’t know when to unplug the amplifiers. One other problem dissipated the movie’s goodwill for me: Though the two leading ladies both have competent voices, neither has the Janis Joplin-Grace Slick-Stevie Nicks vocal chops the genre calls for. Hudgens, especially, could have used a lot more in the vocal area when called upon to put across the obligatory Star Is Born moment (and the song chosen is a dud, too). Gorgeous and competent the ladies are (and Michalka plays a mean guitar), but both come closer to Nancy rather than Ann Wilson in the vocal department. There’s nothing here as enthralling as the truly exultant “The Want of a Nail” that the musical theatre kids belted out at the conclusion of Camp and, given Graff’s sophisticated musical sensibilities, that’s a disappointment.
Although Bandslam wears out its welcome as it teeters rather than rocks toward the finish line, there is something inherently enticing in the old “let’s put on a show” formula it utilizes—even one that rocks at 125 decibels.
Film notes:
—Faith Trimel, the director of Black Aura On An Angel, returns with a new dramedy titled Family. The film focuses on six lesbian friends (a doctor, hair-salon owner, personal trainer, etc.) living “on the down low” in image-conscious L.A as each slowly comes out of the closet. The movie will be shown as part of the Gene Siskel Film Center’s 15th annual Black Harvest International Festival of Film and Video on Friday, Aug. 14, at 8:15 p.m. and on Wed., Aug., 19 at 8:15pm. Trimel, a Chicago native, will be present at the Friday, Aug. 14, screening for a Q&A with audience members and will also partake in a panel titled “How to Get a Movie Made” on Saturday, Aug. 15 at 5 p.m. See www.siskelfilmcenter.org.
—DVDs of interest: I’ve been re-watching all of Mad Men: Season 2 (Sony) in preparation for the show’s long awaited return Sunday, Aug. 16. The four-disc set includes a cool batch of featurettes focusing on the fashions, history and cultural mores of the 1960s time period of the show. As much as I’m enjoying the second season of HBO’s True Blood, it has yet to match the high hunk content rate of the first season, which is out in a nice five-disc set complete with mockumentaries created for the show about the controversial “fangbangers,” aka vampires. And though A Haunting in Connecticut (Lionsgate), which stars Winnetka native Virginia Madsen, didn’t exactly scare up big numbers at the box office, it’s still an enjoyable haunted-house thriller, and the unedited DVD version will make goremongers a tad happier. Finally, the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, as seen through the eyes of survivor and amateur filmmaker Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband Scott (and captured by them on video as it was happening), is tremendously moving. Kimberly’s footage is incorporated into Carl Deal and Tia Lessin’s Oscar-nominated documentary Trouble the Water, now out from Zeitgeist.
Check out my archived reviews at www.windycitytimes.com or www.knightatthemovies.com. Readers can leave feedback at the latter Web site.