Almost Famous (2000)

Written and Directed by Cameron Crowe

Based on Crowe's teenage experience of writing for Rolling Stone, and touring with the Allman Brothers, Almost Famous tells the story of William Miller (Patrick Fugit), who is a high school prodigy and writer for the rock magazine Cream. On an assignment for his column, William tries to get into a show to interview Black Sabbath, but can't get past the security at the back door. He meets band aid (not to be confused with a groupie) named Penny Lane (Kate Hudson) and her friends, who promises she will get him in to the venue when she can. Instead, he notices up and coming band Stillwater entering the show late, and is able to get into the venue with them by giving them positive feedback on their latest album. The band, not being quite yet famous, welcomes his fandom and takes a personal liking to him, telling him to show up for the rest of their tour.

Still being a high school teenager, William is floored, and decides to follow the band. At the same time he is escaping his smothering mother, who has already driven William's sister (Zooey Daschanel) away from home to become a stewardess. As a present, she leaves William all of her rock albums, and William feels an instant connection to the music. After convincing his begrudging mother to let him go, he starts to write an article on Stillwater, and after reading William's past articles in Cream magazine, the editor of Rolling Stone calls him and he suggests doing a piece on Stillwater.

Through the coaching of his mentor, Lester Bangs (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), young William learns the ins and outs of major rock journalism, and how to stay alert when the band might be trying to use him to further their own image. Becoming friends with the band, Williams adolescent fan worship sometimes interferes with this, but in the meantime he tries to interview the main up and coming star in the band, Russell (Billy Crudup). He follows the band on their ups and downs, their infighting and animosity towards each other, and their experience of struggling with gaining fame. As his deadline approaches, William is too polite to try to enforce his interview with Russell, and instead opts to sit back and enjoy the ride, along the way learning a lot about the pressures of stardom, and growing up in his own way.

This film is about friendship and corrupted innocence from two different points of view: William growing up and becoming his own person while touring with a rock band, and Stillwater being seduced by the fame provided by their growing success. They go through every phase that has now become rock cliche from booze and drugs to women and infighting, and along the way they try to salvage a career out of the whole mess, while trying to maintain their loyalty to their pre-fame friends, while at the same time trying to please the people that will make them famous. The honestly befriend William, but at the same time Lester Bangs warns him about how Stillwater's unwitting seduction of innocent William will eventually lead to them wanting William's story to conform to their standards.

Every cliche that is explored in this film is now only a cliche because it has been done in numerous films before (such as The Doors) but Crowe writes from the vantage point of someone that was actually there. Through the good and the bad, he has an original and insightful look into the 1970's rock scene, how it became what it was, and how the people involved either failed or succeeded. It is a coming of age story told through a rock biopic, of course with a fake band. Along the way William also discovers love when he falls for Penny Lane, who is intertwined with the band's star, Russell. He also documents the deteriorating relationship between lead singer Jeff (Jason Lee) and Russell, and the strains that the band has to live through while living their lives on the road.

There are original twists on the rock journalism field, such as William writing for Rolling Stone at 15, and the editors of Rolling Stone thinking he is an established journalist. Much to their surprise, he is merely a teenager, but the pressure is on for him to perform even though he is having trouble obtaining that interview from Russell, due to the band's turbulent times. This is as honest a depiction of the lives as you are likely to get, which is hilarious, since it is all Crowe's fictionalization of the real events. Still, it feels more real than most of the movies in this field, and because of his talent for storytelling, and true filmmaking chops, he comes through with a coming of age love story set against a fictionalized rock biopic. This is no easy task to handle.

To help him out are the fantastic actors Jason Lee and Billy Crudup. At the time, Lee was still gaining his fame and breaking out of his Kevin Smith shell. Of course he is now a big star with his own television show, but Crudup has yet to really break the walls of stardom down, which I think he will accomplish with 2009's Watchmen. At the same time Patrick Fugit and Kate Hudson both turn in great breakthrough performances, and Crowe has a supporting cast of other pretty well known up and coming actors (at the time) from Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Jimmy Fallon, to Fairuza Balk and Anna Paquin, his cast definitely makes his great words and storytelling shine. All in all this is the definitive, if fictionalized, rock biopic, told from every angle, one of the few movies that actually puts you into the mindset of the characters involved in a special and historical time and place.

8.3/10