Not Fade Away
(USA, 112 min.)
Written and directed by David Chase
Starring: John Magaro, Bella Heathcote, Jack Huston, Will
Brill, James Gandolfini, Christopher McDonald, Molly Price.
Bada Bing!
“Sopranos” creator David Chase has finally made the transition to feature
films. Chase has quite a legacy to live up to since his last project became the
greatest television series in the history of the medium. Not Fade Away might not hit the same height as the mob-family
drama, but it proves a worthy first feature nonetheless.
The exciting rush of the new vibrations catches the ear of
Douglas (John Magaro), a young Italian-American growing up in Tony Soprano
territory. His dad, Pat, is played by Tony Soprano himself. Like Tony, Pat is
an icon of an old time, a man who wonders what ever happened to Gary Cooper,
but says little else. Douglas’s mother (Molly Price) says even less, aside from
lamenting the poverty of her parents and beating her breast. Douglas feels
something new in the music and, inspired by the tunes of The Rolling Stones,
especially their track “Not Fade Away,” he decides to channel his budding rebelliousness
into music.
Douglas, a gawky, Dylan-ish performer, hones his vocals with
the band while he finds his voice outside of the musical gigs. Between dropping
out of college and finding the girl (a revelatory Bella Swan), Douglas’s growth
with the band parallels the changes in the world around him. It’s a storyline
quite similar to the hip 1996 Tom Hanks film That Thing You Do! Perhaps it’s apt that both Hanks and Chase made
their feature directorial debuts with films about the cultural revolution inspired
by the freewheeling vibes of rock ‘n’ roll. Like That Thing You Do!, Not Fade
Away is a tribute to rock ‘n’ roll. The films show how music and culture
define who we are, since, like Douglas or the bandsmen of The Oneders, the
music is freedom, an escape from the suburbs and from monotonous routines.
The dearth of suburbia is captured perfectly in the
performances by Gandolfini and Price as Douglas’s cranky, old-school Italian
parents. Offering the film’s funniest moments, but playing it straight all the
while, Gandolfini and Price embody the repressed, if not suffocating, energy from rock ‘n’ helps offers an escape. Props must also go to
Christopher McDonald, who brings the ghost of Shooter McGavin into every square
he plays. Magaro, on the other hand, struggles to carry the film on his own,
but he makes an amiable effort, for he at least channels a boyish abandon for
sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.
The story of making the band might be familiar, as Douglas
and his pals go through the inevitable quibbles that arise whilst trying to
make it big, but Chase plays the band’s rise with an engaging beat. Like the Gary Cooper whom Tony Soprano laments, Not Fade Away is the strong, silent type of movie. It's a classically composed tribute to a pivotal past era. If Not Fade Away holds the same beat for much of its running time, it
does so with a great sense of the period and with some of the same depth of
character that made “The Sopranos” such a great show. Chase makes a
steady transition from the small screen to the big screen. The director's camera, far
more attune for the cinema than, say The
Sessions’ Ben Lewin, moves with a steady eye for working on a larger plane. Chase’s natural sense for the cinema makes an easy step from “The
Sopranos,” proving definitively that “It’s not TV, it’s HBO.”
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Not Fade Away is currently playing in Ottawa at Empire Kanata and Empire 7.
