"Almost Famous"

A movie about a boy and a rock band. But it's really all about the girls.

By Stephanie Zacharek

Sep 15, 2000 | There's a certain kind of man who wouldn't be capable of fashioning an autobiographical tale that wasn't mostly about women; Cameron Crowe is one of them. "Almost Famous" is Crowe's semiautobiographical account of a 15-year-old journalist who goes on the road with a fictional rock band in 1973, on assignment for Rolling Stone. The movie is somewhat formless, a little too ramshackle in places, its significant moments sometimes only partially connected, like the doodles in the margins of a school kid's notebook.

But "Almost Famous" is sweet at its core: It's far from being a rock-boy fantasy, and you can't even call it a tender valentine to a past era -- it's more like a love letter to a vibe. Ostensibly, the picture is about the adventures of a smart kid who gets to hang out with rock bands, but "Almost Famous" is really about something else, a subject that comes to the fore gradually and subtly, like a shimmery stand of trees down a stretch of hot road that almost don't look real until you've actually passed them.

Like rock 'n' roll itself, the movie's really all about girls. Even when -- no, especially when -- it's pretending not to be.

It was clearly Crowe's intent to tell a version of his own story: An affable and intelligent kid, he made a name for himself as a journalist while still a teenager, writing sharply observed profiles of bands like Led Zeppelin and the Allman Brothers for Rolling Stone. The elfin hero of "Almost Famous," William Miller (Patrick Fugit), is charming and likable, supremely sympathetic in spite of all his eager ambitions. Early on in the picture, he approaches his idol Lester Bangs, the then-as-now-legendary writer and editor of Creem (brought to life beautifully, with scuffed-up irascibility and a not-insignificant gut, by Philip Seymour Hoffman).

Bangs, a fairy godmother in a Guess Who T-shirt, warns William not to get too cozy with the bands he's hoping to write about, and also informs him that the truly exciting era of rock 'n' roll is over: "You got here just in time for the death rattle." Still, he's impressed with William -- probably with his "Sure, go ahead, eat me alive!" innocence as much as with his enthusiasm -- and offers him $35 to write 1,000 words on a Black Sabbath concert.

William heads off to the show, dropped off by his neurotic, intellectual, highly protective but undoubtedly loving mother (Frances McDormand, giving the role just the right amounts of muscle and vulnerability), who calls out after him, just as he's passing a herd of girls, "Don't take drugs!" Using his guileless wiles, he tries to wangle his way backstage to interview the band, but barely manages to get a word with the band's opening act, fictitious blues-rock outfit Stillwater. He does have the good fortune to meet a young fan, a head-swimmingly radiant blond named Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), who despises the word "groupie" and instead calls herself and her friends Band-Aids.

And that's where William's real odyssey begins. After attracting the attention of Rolling Stone editor Ben Fong-Torres (hilariously deadpan Terry Chen, in a series of deliciously godawful '70s print shirts), he's assigned to go out on the road with the up-and-coming Stillwater, chiefly to winnow out the personal secrets of the band's enigmatic guitarist, Russell (Billy Crudup). Russell holds William at arm's length, partly because he views him as "the enemy," but perhaps even more because, as the spare but heavily crosshatched shading of Crudup's performance reveals, there's not a whole lot to Russell beyond his basic likability. Russell is the stand-in for every meat-and-potatoes rock star out there who takes advantage of the benefits of success, probably without even thinking, even though he doesn't succumb to its very worst excesses. He's sensitive enough, yet perhaps not overly bright: At one point, fed up with conflicts within the band, he grabs William and heads out to find something "real," ending up at a house party with a group of awestruck Topeka, Kan., teens. After taking perhaps a tad too much acid, he ends up jumping off a roof into a swimming pool, but only after he has declared, "I am a golden god!"

William soaks it all in, but he has already begun to like Russell, which naturally causes conflicts when it's time to file his story. And he's not exempt from rock 'n' roll hedonism himself. Penny and her fellow Band-Aids (a group that includes terrific, if in this case underused, actors like Anna Paquin and magnificently scary Fairuza Balk) protect him on the road. But with the exception of Penny, who almost chastely excuses herself, they also ultimately deflower him in a hotel room, dancing around him in a swirl of chiffon scarves as he sits blankly on the bed in his BVDs, terrified and amused, his sunken adolescent chest looking more like a candidate for Vicks VapoRub than the erotic flutter of female hands.

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