September 13, 2000 | Almost Famous is the kind of idiosyncratic and deeply personal project that usually gets green-lit by a major studio only after a filmmaker scores with a breakthrough commercial smash.
Writer-director Cameron Crowe earned his blank check with the enormously engaging Jerry Maguire, one of the past decade’s very best movies. The success spurred him to blast into his past, to vividly evoke the era that shaped his sensibilities — the early 1970s — without the distortions of cheap nostalgia or sitcom trivialization. Drawing from his misadventures as a 15-year-old rock journalist for Rolling Stone magazine, Crowe has concocted a heartfelt but clear-eyed comedy-drama that is all the more poignantly bittersweet for being at least partially true. Almost Famous is a coming-of-age story, told from the compassionately bemused viewpoint of an older and wiser adult who has somehow managed to avoid the ravages of cynicism, and has never forgotten how lucky he was to be in the right place at the right moment.
For William Miller (Patrick Fugit), a San Diego teen caught between his anxiously protective mother (Frances McDormand) and born-to-run rebellious sister (Zooey Deschanel), 1973 is the best of all of possible times. True, he can’t count many friends among his older classmates. (Thanks to mom, he skipped a grade or two.) But his savvy music reviews in the school paper attract the attention of legendary rock critic Lester Bangs (another extraordinary character turn by Philip Seymour Hoffman). Bangs warns William against being too chummy with rock stars — “Remember, these people are not your friends!” — and gets his young disciple a few freelance writing gigs. The stories are noted by Rolling Stone editor Ben Fong-Torres (a clever caricature by Terry Chen), who gives William the dream assignment of going on the road with an up-and-coming band named Stillwater.
In order for the dream to come true, it helps that Fong-Torres has no idea how young William is. It also helps that, despite her virulent disapproval of rock music and the people who perform it, William’s mother reluctantly agrees to let him make the trip. Not that she really has much to worry about: William may get up-close and personal with hard-living, party-hearty rockers, but he is more of an eager witness than an active participant during their cross-country travels. He never gets high, and remains a virgin until a group of groupies playfully presses the issue. When William loses his innocence, his fall from grace has nothing to do with substance abuse or sexual excess.
Even as he details disillusionment, however, Crowe refuses to let Almost Famous turn dark or squalid. Indeed, this may be the sweetest and most generous-spirited movie ever made about sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.
The loosely knit plot calls for William to become infatuated with Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), a self-deluding hanger-on who insists she is a “band aide,” not a mere groupie, as she allows herself to be exploited by Stillwater lead guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup). William is jealous, yet he can’t bring himself to hate, or even dislike, Russell. And with good reason: When the moody rocker turns on his disarming charm, it’s easy for William – and the audience – to believe Russell accepts the young “intruder” as a friend and confidant. It’s terribly difficult for the young writer to reconcile his high regard for Russell with his painfully mixed feelings about Russell’s cavalier treatment of Penny.
The movie builds towards a betrayal, a bitter irony and a near-death experience. But then, as if to tweak us for any rash assumptions, Crowe veers away from predictable melodrama, to offer something more richly complex and immensely satisfying.
When it comes to citing specific reasons why Almost Famous is altogether fabulous, it’s impossible to overestimate the importance of newcomer Patrick Fugit’s lead performance. Not since Francois Truffaut cast Jean-Pierre Leaud as Antoine Doinel in The 400 Blows has any filmmaker been so fortunate in finding an actor to serve as his autobiographical alter ego. At once gravely serious and exuberantly giddy as he is force-fed life lessons, William is endearingly comical in his innocuous pursuit of truth — note the way he thrusts his microphone at every interview subject — but Fugit encourages us to laugh with, not at, the character. Just as important, he plays William with the perfect amount of self-awareness, neatly balancing naiveté and arrogance as he sees how rock ‘n’roll brings out the best and worst in himself and the folks around him.
William is the center of the movie’s universe, but there are equally rich and fully realized characters in his orbit. Frances McDormand plays Elaine, William’s mother, with an unshakable faith in her worst suspicions, and a remarkable talent for gale-force intimidation. (When she warns Russell to keep her son out of harm’s way, the rocker is seriously and sincerely spooked.) But there’s much more to the character, and to McDormand’s performance, than shrill intensity; for all her excess, she’s also a genuinely loving, caring and encouraging parent. Kate Hudson is nothing short of luminous as Penny Lane, a beguiling swirl of teasing sensuality and wistful yearning. And Billy Crudup finally gets the chance to fulfill his bright promise as a rising star with his arresting portrayal of Russell, the enigmatic rogue who sets a very instructive bad example for young William.
Crowe persuasively recreates the look and sound of the early ’70s — Stillwater, a fictional band, bears more than a passing resemblance to Lynyrd Skynyrd — and he winningly conveys a diehard fan’s boundless enthusiasm for rock as something that makes workaday life more worth living. The music is never mocked in Almost Famous, and the musicians — even the self-indulgent poseurs — are only occasionally kidded. As a fortysomething adult, Crowe knows it’s only rock ‘n’ roll, but he still likes it. In fact, he loves it so much, he’s made a movie about the first blush of his lifelong romance.
