Not Fade Away

★★★

(2012)

David Chase makes his debut with the somewhat autobiographical Not Fade Away, a splash of 60's rock and roll topped off with a good helping of breakfast table family drama. Though the film could have easily played as a more suburban prequel to Cameron Crowe's wonderful Almost Famous, Chase instead hints, and often points directly, at something far darker. It's rambling style may not see Not Fade Away reach the same nostalgic audiences as Crowe's own autobiographical coming of age tale but Chase has to be admired for not taking the most obvious of structures for his young band trying to bust out of the New Jersey suburbs.

Anyone who has ever been in a band will know that the clichés are clichéd for a reason and Chase hits them all head on. Douglas (John Magaro) is recruited as a drummer for a local garage band, primed with covers of old blues staples and Rolling Stones songs. Doug's father (James Gandalfini) nearly chokes on his breakfast when his son arrives home in cuban heels and a waist coat, a carbon copy of a Don't Look Back era Dylan and although the writer director exerts a fair bit of effort on the father son relationship, the film's band and the film itself never really get anywhere of any note but perhaps that, Chase has argued, is the point.

The endless list of period films tackling the rise and fall of bands is surely in the 1,000s but admirably or disappointingly Not Fade Away never really shows us its chops. The whole thing sags towards the end with a feeling of a missed opportunity. The romance is handled haphazardly with Bella Heathcote and Magaro never really firing up, a sub plot involving her mad sister tramples on large parts of the film and even though the music is the strongest aspect, the sounds by Steven Van Zandt quickly lose their intended punch after an ending which goes against the very sentiment of the infamous title.

After the success of The Sopranos, Chases first foray into the cinema should have smacked with crackling dialogue, observed its characters and made us love and hate his band in the way that Crowe made us feel about Stillwater, the Zeplinesque dysfunctional arguing group in his oscar winner. The idea that Chase is attempting to portray the vast majority of kids who never escape the fold is unique one, Gandolfini and Magaro are great, it's packed with sweet tunes but sadly when setting up a film with this much nostalgia for the time and the people, failure is not an option.