'Almost' a groupie, without the sex

There is a certain allure to being a groupie. I mean, you get to hang out with rock stars. They're cool. So you're cool by association. Almost Famous relies on that latent (or not-so-latent) urge to be a groupie, allowing us all to be one without actually being one—and in 1973, no less. Almost Famous bets that you either miss or missed the 1970s, when the free-love culture drew its last great gasp before the '80s and AIDS hit. Don't you wish you could have been there?

COURTESY DREAMWORKS SKG Phillip Seymour Hoffman (yes, that's really him) as Lester Bangs.

With Almost Famous, director Cameron Crowe tells his own story, slightly altered, of his first assignment as a reporter for Rolling Stone. The story centers on William Morris (played by newcomer Patrick Fugit), a high school freshman, whose sister secretly introduced him to rock 'n roll before escaping their overprotective mother (Frances McDormand). Though their mother prohibits rock because it promotes "drugs and promiscuous sex," William's bequeathed collection of Joni Mitchell, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, and Led Zeppelin gets him hooked to rock. After sending off a few furiously-written rock articles to Creem and Rolling Stone in the hope that they'll recognize his raw talent, William gains a mentor in Creem editor Lester Bangs (Phillip Seymour Hoffman, delighting in the role).

Incredibly, Rolling Stone calls William and offers him the chance to do a story without realizing that William is only 15. Even more amazingly, William's mom allows him to do it. And so William embarks on the odyssey of the rock 'n roll circus, following an emerging band named Stillwater. Also following Stillwater are the "band-aids," a group of self-described "liberated groupies;" they inspire music without having intercourse with the band. "Only blowjobs," one of them happily exclaims. Their leader, Penny Lane (the lovely Kate Hudson) takes William under her wing. William, of course, falls madly in love, but Penny has already made guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) her project of choice, setting up eminent tension. Before William goes on tour with Stillwater, Lester Bangs warns him, "Do not make friends with the rock stars. Be honest and unmerciful. Otherwise this just becomes an industry of cool." Bangs' advice goes wasted, of course, as William starts to enjoys being cool (or faking it well) for the first time.

Almost Famous offers its audience many indulgences. Because of the pure pleasure of losing yourself in great music and beautiful people, it's difficult not to enjoy watching this movie. But it is not an altogether satisfying piece of work. For a movie about rock 'n roll, a revolutionary art form, it's remarkably hackneyed, with many scenes bordering on the greeting-card-cheesy while others are just clichéd. William's mother becomes a stock joke—"DON'T DO DRUGS!" is her refrain as she becomes more and more distressed about her son. To McDormand's credit, she maintains the character's roundness despite the flat role written for her. She and Fugit have a good rapport on screen and their relationship is believable even though Crowe's script leaves very little room for it. There is even a scene when one of the "Band-Aids" is running alongside the bus delivering a message to William from his mother and runs into a brick wall. Real funny.

Film

Almost Famous Directed by Cameron Crowe Starring: Patrick Fugit, Kate Hudson, Billy Crudup Showcase Cinemas

While it alludes to excesses and hypocrisies in the underside of rock 'n roll, the movie fails to fully explore these issues. Early in the movie, Lester Bangs tells William that his timing's off: rock 'n roll is over, and all that's left is its death rattle. Crowe obviously wants to show how rock is dying, but he never leaves the party long enough. In one of the few moments that this point comes across, Jeff Bebe (Jason Lee), Stillwater's obnoxiously self-aggrandizing singer, wanting the band to adhere to a formula, tells Russell, "I'm the front man and you're the guitarist with mystique."

The movie succeeds most when Kate Hudson has the camera's attention. Every scene she's in is hers. Hudson imbues Penny Lane's every sidelong glance and siren movement with charm and mystery. It's easy to see why everyone wants to be with Penny Lane, and Hudson succeeds in making her character likeable despite her superficiality and Holly Golightly flakiness. When circumstances crack Penny Lane's no-worries façade, Hudson believably portrays these more serious emotions without any sense of discontinuity with the rest of what we know about Penny Lane. Hudson's star-making performance is reason enough to go see Almost Famous. The repressed groupie in you has to smile.

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