The title of this smart and poetic coming-of-age tale is taken from a Buddy Holly song and focuses on the life of a teen boy circa 1960s. The story opens in black and white images of Mick and Keith on a train just before they became the Rolling Stones. This connects as to the 60s, making us feel as if magic lives in art, that hope springs eternal, that the 60s was a magical time, for anyone destined to be a professional musician.
Douglas (John Magaro) believes that he’s destined to be that musician. The fact that he resembles a young Bob Dylan probably helps his cause. But he ‘s a far cry from Liverpool, England, instead a restless teen growing up in New Jersey, with a father (James Gandolfini) who thinks his son should serve in Nam, instead of writing lyrics and wearing peacoats.
Along all the internal friction runs a parallel narrative of the Beatles fame, JFK’s assassination and an amusing look at the culture and ridiculous value system television’s advertisement delivered – magic and miracle jingles – back in the day.
One might imagine in seeing such a thought-provoking well-crafted film that the writer/director, David Chase, probably lived this existence, and he did. This film is semi-autobiographical, about the “luck” in getting that one shot to do what you want to do. Apparently Chase tried to write screenplays in real life, had similar tensions with his father, was told his tone was ‘too dark’ for Hollywood and eventually went home to put the Garden State on the map, because of a little show he later wrote and produced called The Sopranos.
At times Not Fade Away feels like Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous or Tom Hank’s That Thing You Do, and even on occasion a bit like Sophia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides. But whatever it draws from past films, this one is simple yet somehow complex, transparent at the heart, vulnerable yet confident, which allows us to always be in Douglas’s head as he restlessly channels the British invasion.
The film’s foreshadow and pay-off makes for near-perfect writing skills complimented by beautiful direction. Douglas’s dreams are mothered by his girlfriend (the icy cool Jean Bella Heathcote from Dark Shadows). But the film is narrated by another woman, his semi-invisible younger sister, who gets her own up close and personal moment at the film’s end.
As the film wraps we realize that suddenly the real message isn’t necessarily a boy from Jerseys’ dreams, but a beaten down father (Gandolfini). As Douglas believes in living in the now – play it and the rent will come, Gandolifini’s reality surfaces as a middle-aged men longing to live, but living with regrets, not aspirations. ♔ ♕ ♚ ♛