It seems fitting that director Ang Lee had this film ready for the 40th anniversary of the original Woodstock. The film is a laid back look at how the epic musical event came to be. The film finds a tone that feels like the right vibe for a film on Woodstock. And most importantly, the film puts a coming-of-age story at its center. In a simple way, the film represents everything that Woodstock tried to be.
Elliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin, TV's IMPORTANT THINGS WITH DEMETRI MARTIN) was a young man who finds himself sucked back into the family business — a rundown Castskills motel called the El Monaco. His Russian parents Sonia and Jake (Imelda Staunton, VERA DRAKE, & Henry Goodman, GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS) are running the business into the ground and Elliot has to put the money he earned from some interior design work to keep the bank from foreclosing. He becomes the town's youngest head of the Chamber of Commerce and comes up with various schemes to drive business to his motel, even allowing a troupe of hippie actors to stay in the barn. But when he hears that the Woodstock Music Festival has lost its permit, he gets a big idea.
Elliot calls the festival's organizer Michael Lang (Jonathan Groff, TV's ONE LIFE TO LIVE) and invites him to see if they can hold the event in the field behind the motel. Lang arrives in a helicopter with an entourage that would make The Rolling Stone jealous. The field will not do. So Elliot introduces the organizers to dairy farmer Max Yasgur (Eugene Levy, AMERICAN PIE), who has a lot more prime land. Soon hundreds of people descend on the El Monaco, which becomes the new home for the organizers. Elliot's mom sees dollar signs, while the rest of their small town see red.
Part of the film's charm is watching this massive cultural event grow up around the Teichbergs and how they react. Elliot quickly gets in over his head and wonders if he's only made things worse for his family. His father on the other hand comes to life. He has a purpose and the show must go on. He develops an interesting friendship with Vilma (Liev Schreiber, X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE), the transvestite ex-marine that Elliot hires to help with security at the motel. Elliot mother though tries to squeeze every cent out of these hippies that she can, stringing up sheet in rooms to fit more people in and charging extra for toilet paper.
During the course of the festival planning, Elliot meets a collection of interesting people. Billy (Emile Hirsch, INTO THE WILD) is a friend from high school who has come back from the war with demons. Woodstock allows him to find innocence again. A couple in a VW (Paul Dano, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, & Kelli Garner, LARS AND THE REAL GIRL) takes Elliot on a trip. Over the course of the summer, Elliot discovers who he wants to be and finds freedom from what his parents want him to be. His relationship with his controlling mother will never be the same. Staunton gives a remarkable, Oscar-worthy performance as a woman who has been through a lot in her life and is scared of everything because of it. But Woodstock even finds a way to let her lighten up for a moment or two.
The film chronicles the organizers tricky negotiations with Yasgur, the failed community outreach, Elliot's press conference where he makes people believe the festival is free, the traffic jams, the mud, the crowds. What the film surprisingly doesn't focus on is the music. While Lee borrows some of the visual style from the famed musical WOODSTOCK documentary, using multiple split screens, this film is about what Woodstock meant to Elliot. And I believe Lee in turn captures a bigger ideal.
In the end, Elliot finds inner freedom and peace, which is what Woodstock was all about. He was part of a once in a lifetime event on an intimate level. At first it was a bit overwhelming, but once he got in the groove, he learned to have fun. He also finds out the same lesson about life.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
