What’s not to like about hippies? Volkswagen vans, tie-dye t-shirts, folk rock, bell-bottom pants, LSD, promiscuity… Well, maybe it isn’t all good, but that’s exactly what Ang Lee brings us in the form of “Taking Woodstock.”
The story follows Elliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin), an interior designer who has drained his savings trying to keep the family motel afloat. Out of money and with the bank breathing down his neck, Elliot has to find some way to keep the business open. When he hears of a music festival that loses its permit to perform a few cities over, Elliot is quick to volunteer his parent’s motel and the surrounding property as a substitute. But as hundreds of thousands of flower children begin pouring into his small town, Elliot begins to wonder what he’s gotten himself into.
This film has strong points to make about small-town stuffiness, the benefits and pitfalls of unconventional lifestyles, and the importance of learning to move on. Unfortunately, none of them are ever fully explored. Instead, the audience follows Elliot as he wanders aimlessly between story points.
The language of the times doesn’t help anything, either. Even while writer Joe Schamus strives to make a legitimate point, any attempt at complex dialogue is instantly thwarted with a “Dude,” or a “Far out.”
In fact, the introduction of Paul Dano’s character displays a true low-point in the story’s craft, and the ensuing dialogue captures the essence of the whole film. In it, Elliot tries to hold a decent conversation by saying something quasi-intelligent and even perhaps interesting. However, Dano’s character lazily parries with one- or two-word interjections, shattering any hopes or dreams of a perceptive interchange. In the end, sapped of all rational expectations, Elliot climbs into Dano’s VW van and succumbs to an acid trip.
Can we look past the dialogue? Perhaps the story holds some great epiphany among the confusion? Sadly, we have no such luck. Ang Lee delivers an unimaginative, terribly conventional plotline for this potently original tale. (A nonconformist’s tale retold in such an uninspired way, now that’s ironic.) The story turned out to be a stale coming-of-age tale, climaxing in an all-too-cliché dinner scene where Elliot tells off his parents for being too clingy capped off with his character slamming his fist on the table, and storming out of the room.
The blatant awkwardness of Demetri Martin’s character is jarring and often misplaced. In one scene, he is bounding across the lawn, arms stapled to his sides. Then in the next, his temporary relapse into childhood has vanished, and he is normal, even insightful. These are not different sides of the same person; Elliot is not subtly changing into a more socially acceptable figure; he is in one moment socially inept, and in the next miraculously changed. Such changes point not to purposefully placed character development, but to shoddy workmanship on Ang Lee’s part.
On the other hand, the movie delivers several strong performances with Elliot’s parents played wonderfully by Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton. Both are stable, consistent characters with interesting back-stories and brilliant relational subtext. Eugene Levy also did a great job as Elliot’s soft-spoken neighbor and mentor.
In the end, if there is anything wrong with the script, it is the fact that it meanders. Smart, tight scripts tend to idealize life, or snip out the best parts and make use of them. This script goes in the other direction, collecting anecdotal scenes to create an atmosphere rather than a story. Surely a film’s atmosphere is important, but why discard a story altogether in search of that atmosphere? A good film requires both.
As a highlight, the visuals of ‘Taking Woodstock’ are enjoyable. Ang Lee uses split-screen shots to capture the chaos of setting up a music festival for half a million people. Appropriately, the special effects during Elliot’s occasional encounters with hallucinogens were ‘psychedelic,’ for lack of a better word. A shot of the entire concert audience rising and ebbing in waves is more than enough to make any theatergoer declare “Dude” like a true bohemian.
In the end, Taking Woodstock is a completely sub-par movie, with no intent on breaking the surface of a fascinating historical event or the personalities who made it happen. A good film envelopes you and takes you along on a journey. “Taking Woodstock” confounds its viewers and then pretends that its obscurity is intellectual. Unless you’ve got some hash brownies to kill the pain, I suggest you skip out on this one, dude.
