Crowe’s ‘Almost Famous’ quite remarkable

ALMOST FAMOUS. Written and directed by Cameron Crowe. 124 minutes. Rated R.

Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous” is about a 15-year-old boy coming of age in a world of rock stars, rock groupies, mind-bending drugs, sex, single motherhood and – underscoring it all with an exclamation point – the early 1970s.

At its core, “Almost Famous” is about the loss of innocence, certainly the loss of adolescence, but it wisely doesn’t trivialize the boy’s push into adulthood nor does it assume that adulthood comes at any great emotional cost.

The film is, in fact, in love with the idea of becoming an adult, which is no surprise when one considers it’s based in large part on Crowe’s own experience as a reporter for Rolling Stone in 1973.

As Crowe tells it, everyone’s journey into adulthood should be this glamorous, this exciting, this harrowing, this sweet.

And he’s probably right. His film follows his alter-ego William Miller (Patrick Fugit), a bright, precocious, yet woefully naive young man from San Diego who’s warned time and again by his eccentric mother, Elaine (Frances McDormand), not to listen to rock music. “They’re all on drugs,” she states, referring specifically to Simon and Garfunkel. “You’re to have no part of that.”

But when William’s wayward sister Anita (Zooey Deschanel) leaves him her stash of rock albums before skipping out of town to become a stewardess, she unwittingly changes his life. Indeed, William becomes hooked, so much so that he decides to devote his life to rock music as a critic – one on par with the man who will eventually become his mentor, the legendary rock critic Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

Unabashedly nostalgic but rarely sentimentalized, William’s journey into the seductive world of rock begins with a staunch warning from Lester: “A critic has to make a reputation on being honest and unmerciful. Don’t make friends with the rock stars.”

Smart advice, but William can’t adhere to it. As he connects with the rock group Stillwater, a band he follows around the country after scoring a writing gig with Rolling Stone, he comes to intimately know the players, especially the lead guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) and his girlfriend Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), both of whom forever change William’s life – but in wildly different ways.

Marked by its strong script and outstanding performances, particularly from Fugit, McDormand and Hudson (Goldie Hawn’s daughter), “Almost Famous” is a shot in the arm for anyone tired of the dreck Hollywood has been unleashing in recent weeks. It’s funny and honest, moving and memorable – a character-driven film about growing up in the 1970s that never once gives itself over to cheap cynicism.

And that, in the end, is Cameron Crowe’s feat.

Grade: A

On Video

EAST-WEST. Directed by Regis Wargnier. Written by Roustam Ibraguimbek, Serguei Bodrov, Louis Gardel and Wargnier. 120 minutes. PG-13. In French and Russian, with English subtitles.

Murder, hope, love and betrayal come together seamlessly in Regis Wargnier’s “East-West,” a moving, haunting and ultimately harrowing film about Stalinism that captures the mood of a time and the lives of a people.

One of 1999’s Academy Award nominees for Best Foreign Film (it lost to Pedro Almodovar’s “All About My Mother”), “East-West” is filled with all the drama and disillusionment one would expect from a film examining the iron fist of Stalinism, but it wisely never goes for ripe melodrama or staunch politicizing.

It’s backed by a director and writers who acknowledge Stalin’s evil, while also recognizing that those who followed him weren’t necessarily evil.

The result is a film layered with uncommon emotional complexity, the human landscape examined with a clarity only the passing of time can offer.

The film opens in 1946 France at the end of World War II with Josef Stalin opening his arms to Russian exiles, those expatriates living away who were invited back to the Motherland to help rebuild her after the ravages of war.

But as Aleksei Golovine (Oleg Menchikov), his French wife, Marie (Sandrine Bonnaire), and their son, Serioja (Ruben Tapiero at 7 and Erwan Baynaud at 14), learn upon re-entering Aleksei’s native homeland, Stalin’s message of love and forgiveness for those who fled was a cruel hoax. Indeed, as they arrive at the docks at Odessa, the family witnesses a fellow passenger gunned down for having second thoughts about repatriation.

With Catherine Deneuve and Serguei Bodrov Jr. terrific in key supporting roles, “East-West” mounts a satisfying, daring plot to get the Golovines out of Russia and back West to freedom.

Who makes it out, who stays under Communist rule, who lives and who dies won’t be revealed here, but know this: The film’s last 30 minutes are so genuinely tense and unnerving, they linger in the mind long after the screen fades to black.

Grade: A-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, and Tuesday and Thursday on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6.