Taking Woodstock

USA 2009, 110 minutes
Dir. Ang Lee
Genres: Comedy, Drama, Music / History

Topics: Period 1960s, Rites-of-passage.

Feat. Demetri Martin, Imelda Staunton, Henry Goodman, Liev Schreiber, Emile Hirsch, Eugene Levy

Aroview: Dir. Ang Lee painstakingly recreates the age of Aquarius for this sprawling yet tepid comedy based on the 'true story' of a Jewish interior designer (Martin) who inadvertently sets in motion the epic Woodstock music festival in his small home town in the Catskills.

So loosely knit as to be dramatically threadbare, this coming-of-age tale counts as a surprising mis-step for the director of many modern classics, including BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN and CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. As it wholesale forgoes the musicality of the event, what is mostly left is a bunch of hippie-era cliches, played by actors in bad wigs. The original WOODSTOCK documentary is all you need to know.