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Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll - Still Rolling...
I am listening to Ian Dury as I am writing this, so I suppose Matt Whitecross’s feature film debut did its job. “Sex & Drugs & Rok & Roll” is currently screening in the Panorama section of the Berlinale, eligible for an audience award. And it is an impressive debut, make no mistake, capturing the energy and possibility of the music scene of the 70s in the UK with Ian Dury as one of the fathers of Punk and New Wave.
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And let’s start with what is good about it before getting to the few buts about it that persist.
First of all, Andy Serkis as Ian Dury proves he has more acting talent in his little finger than most of the “Lord of the Rings” cast with a few exceptions (Cate Blanchett, Ian McKellen). So hopefully this will prove to be the performance that will get him recognized beyond playing Gollum and smaller parts in films like “The Prestige”. He is that good as the tortured musician trying to combine fatherhood with his music career (the best aspect of the film, touching on a subject most biopics eschew). The other noteworthy performance comes from Bil Milner as Baxter, Ian Dury’s son, who already held his own against Michael Caine in “Is Anybody There”. And these performances are what make the film work. The rest of the cast fit their roles nicely and are convincing as their characters. The only thing not truly convincing are their surroundings, which seem too artificial and clever at times, the filmmakers hyper-aware of what they were aiming for based on preceding films.
And this is where I hit the buts. The film doesn’t really present us with anything new, especially when it comes to the visuals it so clearly loves. The best scenes are the quieter, not stylized ones - Dury with his family and son, trying to be as good a father as he can be while also trying to get to grips with his own life and revolutionizing music (while also ignoring his daughter, go figure). Mirroring the relationship he has with his protégé son Chaz Jankel (Tom Hughes) who goes from being star struck to frustrated with Dury’s antics, though always a decisive influence in the Blockheads. Same goes for the few moments we get of Ian just enjoying the language he played with and utilized in his poetic lyrics.
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It just gets mired down in all the rest, which makes up the majority of the film and seems like a rehash of every musician biopic so far, borrowing most heavily from “Velvet Goldmine” (which is a good ten years back) in terms of visuals and editing style. Psychedelic performances intercut with domestic life and appropriately colored fantasy scenes just aren’t anything new really, and this is where the film falls a bit flat. Attempts to contrast Dury’s larger than life stage persona and his tough childhood growing up in an orphanage full of kids stricken with polio like himself work well enough, but ultimately feel a bit too clichéd the way they are presented. I get the feeling it read better on paper than it translated onto the screen.
Still, with a budget of a mere two million Pounds (compared to the bloated budget of Avatar), it is an impressive film. It just descends into unintended clichés – partly due to the format, partly due to the seemingly stale musician biopic genre overall. Ironically, this is where fictional biopics like "Hard Core Logo" and "Velvet Goldmine" work better than than the real deal, so maybe the genre needs to let go of some conventions and come up with a format of its own.
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