Sweet, charming, and intimate despite the huge subject, TAKING WOODSTOCK is a film not about Woodstock but the characters and events around it. We follow Eliot Tiber, a young man who lured the organizers of the Woodstock Festival to the White Lake area of New York after their initial location fell through. Demetri Martin plays Eliot with a lovely restrained sense... Eliot is trapped both at his family's motel, and trapped in the closet, hiding his homosexuality. His dour, stingy parents played by Henry Goodman and the amazingly talented Imelda Staunton (compare this performance to her turn as Dolores Umbridge in THE HARRY POTTER films) keep him psychologically bound. But when the exhilarating chaos and hippie-freedom of Woodstock comes to town, their lives loosen and expand.
Some reviews I read complained that Ang Lee did not show any of the music. But that is not what the film is about. There is a perfectly good documentary of the festival, so no need to recreate it. The film is about the reverberations and spirit of the festival spilling over and changing people's lives.
The film's style does now and then split the screen into thirds or quarters, and wash out the colors in an imitation of the documentary; these effects evoke the feeling of the period very well. Set and wardrobe details complete the look and feel.
Recommend? Yes. Sweet and fun.
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