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| Bella Heathcote and John Magaro in Not Fade Away |
Cast: John Magaro, Jack Huston, Will Brill, Bella Heathcote, James Gandolfini, Brad Garrett, Christopher McDonald, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Dominique McElligott, Molly Price, Meg Guzulescu, Gerard Canonico. Screenplay: David Chase. Cinematography: Eigil Bryld. Production design: Ford Wheeler. Film editing: Sidney Wolinsky.
David Chase created The Sopranos, one of the greatest dramatic TV series of all time, rich in character and incident, with a superb evocation of a particular milieu. But what makes a series work doesn't necessarily make for a successful movie. Not Fade Away gives us a portrait of a corner of suburban New Jersey in the 1960s, with a youth culture at odds with the older generation and the Vietnam War seething in the background. The central story is that of Doug Damiano (John Magaro), who begins the film as a high school kid intoxicated with rock 'n' roll, especially after the emergence of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. He and his friends Gene (Jack Huston) and Wells (Will Brill) start a band, and he gets a girlfriend, Grace (Bella Heathcote). Doug is at odds with his father, Pat (James Gandolfini) over his hair and his music, especially after Doug drops out of college to try to make it in the record business. It might have made a good TV series, but Chase fails to give it shape and coherence as a film, tossing in scenes that don't work with the main story, such as a needlessly included encounter of the young Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on a train at the start of the film. He occasionally inserts a narrative voiceover by a secondary character whose identity isn't revealed until the very end, and then to no great point. There are some good performances by Magaro, Huston, and Gandolfini, but the movie's lack of focus and narrative drive undermines them.
