Greetings From Tim Buckley

The core problem with Dan Algrant’s photoshopped portrait of Tim Buckley and his son, Jeff (perhaps that should be the other way around), is that it assumes that the viewer not only knows who the two are, but that they will find everything about them intrinsically interesting irrespective of what is on the screen.  Most people with a reasonable knowledge of modern pop music history will be across the first issue, but I can’t imagine that there are many who will belong to the latter category.

So...Tim Buckley (Ben Rosenfield) was a prolific '60s folk singer in the Dylanesque manner who died from a heroin overdose in 1975. Jeff (Penn Badgely) was his talented son who released a much-praised debut album with the best-yet cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” before accidentally drowning in 1997. The film, set before the release of Jeff’s album, is centred on a concert celebrating his father’s music to which he has been invited as the “special guest”.  Although accepting  the invitation he is resentful of being in the shadow of his famous dad, whom he never actually knew.  At rehearsals he meets and strikes up a relationship with a cute production assistant (Imogen Poots). Intermittently we see Jeff’s dad on the road heading to a gig.

Leaping right into proceedings Algrant takes for granted that we know Buckley the elder’s music and general bio as it gives us periodic glimpses of him and his girlfriend on the road, with similarly brief excerpts of his music (disappointingly though, nothing from the album from which this film takes its title). Meanwhile in the film's present, an apparently (we hear little of his music) gifted young man, the younger Buckley carries on like a petulant adolescent, behaviour that is evidently appealing to his budding girlfriend (he/Badgely is good-looking enough to get away with it) but of little interest to anyone else, before eventually getting on stage and wowing the audience in what was the doorway to a stellar, albeit brief, career.

One can understand what Algrant was aiming for - a kind of hip-joined observational portrait of the two singer-songwriters but if you don’t already know Tim Buckley’s music this is hardly likely to set you on a search for it, let alone for that of his son.

Available from: Icon Movies

 

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