‘Woodstock’ captures spirit of era, but lacks energy

In the bathroom of the Arclight Cinema in Hollywood, two women with graying hair and beaded scarves draped over their shoulders chatted excitedly 15 minutes prior to the screening of Taking Woodstock.

“Where were you during Woodstock?” one asked the other, to which she replied with a detailed description of a weekend 40 years past.

It’s nothing short of amazing how an unprecedented music event has become as legendary and historically significant as John F. Kennedy’s assassination or Sept. 11. The Woodstock Music and Art Festival has come to define not only a generation, but also a radical social movement, spawning copycat festivals and films attempting to capture the event’s original magic.

Yet Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock — the release of which nearly coincided with the music and art festival’s 40th anniversary — is not about how the paisley-clad counterculture turned upstate New York into a peace-loving disaster zone in August 1969, but the mostly true story of how Woodstock almost never happened if it weren’t for the small faction of naively open-minded townspeople.

Adapted from the memoir of the same name, Taking Woodstock follows a young Jewish man named Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin). A former New York City designer, Elliot has returned to upstate New York to help his Russian-Jewish parents run their dilapidated motel. While in town, Elliot hears that the neighboring town of Woodstock pulled its permits on a “hippie music festival.” Knowing this is his chance to save his parents and their motel from foreclosure, Elliot contacts the concert promoters about using his parent’s land, and the rest is history.

Lee paints an honest portrait of white rural America, one that possesses a bit more color on his palate than the wheat-hued terrain of Brokeback Mountain. The opening of Taking Woodstock is small-town beauty at its finest: open roads, vast fields and storefronts radiating rustic charm.

While Lee’s quiet sensibility as a filmmaker is utilized well in the film’s first half, it falters when Taking Woodstock gains — or should gain — momentum as the colorful caravan of society misfits invades the rural town. As the number of hippies increases, Lee attempts to encapsulate the myriad of activities and conversations with split-screen cinematography. This ultimately backfires, muddling the action and overwhelming the audience instead of capturing the buzzing energy of the crowd.

Though Taking Woodstock lacks with its painfully dull protagonist — Martin’s static performance leaves a lot to be desired — the film features a number of memorable performances from its quirky peripheral players.

As Billy, a young Vietnam veteran fresh from the battlefield, Emile Hirsch channels Christopher Walken a la The Deer Hunter, his eyes constantly darting, searching and brimming with emotion. Hirsch conquers everything from loud, expletive-laden outbursts to mellow, nostalgia-driven monologues with ease; if only he lingered longer on screen, his performance would be Oscar-nomination worthy.

While focusing on Elliot and his overdue awakening makes for a touching story, one cannot help but wonder how electrifying Taking Woodstock would have been if it followed Hirsch’s troubled Vietnam vet or Liev Scheiber’s gentle and wise transvestite, Vilma.

Much of the film’s comical scenes also stem from the Earthlight Players, an avant-garde acting troupe of Vassar graduates that lives in the motel’s run-down barn. The troupe’s shining moment is its updated version of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, where the performers fully disrobe before an audience of conservative townsfolk, provoking an excited Billy to follow suit.

Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine) also makes a hilariously authentic cameo. Dano’s soft voice and carefree demeanor translates well into the poncho-clad Californian hippie who introduces Elliot to LSD and all the psychedelia associated with the drug: highly contrasted hues, swirling visuals and a disembodied sensation that causes Elliot to question where his arms are.

Outside the theater, long after the closing credits have rolled, the two women from the bathroom stalls wrap their scarves tighter around their necks, shaking their heads as they converse.

“If you want to know what Woodstock was like, go watch Woodstock,” one says to the other.

For those flower children looking to relive the era for which they yearn, a documentary like Woodstock is undeniably a better fit. But for those who missed out on donning fringed vests and long locks and feeling like you were a part of something “big,” Taking Woodstock provides a shallow glimpse into the counterculture that fascinated millions.

While not the most factual or informative exposé on the revolutionary event, Taking Woodstock offers a slightly more stimulating experience than staying home with your Janis Joplin records.