Born to be Blue. (15.)
Directed by Robert Budreau.
Starring Ethan Hawke, Carmen Ejogo, Callum Keith Rennie, Tony Nappo, Janet-Laine Green and Stephen McHattie. 90 mins.
I came into this with a sketchy knowledge of jazz trumpeter and vocalist Chet Baker – basically Let's Get Lost (his recording of, not the Bruce Weber documentary) and some anecdotes about what a horrible junky he was. The junky jazz musician biopic has a selection of well worn paths to take; none of which is the triumph over adversity arc Budreau carves out for his subject.
The film focuses on a really thin sliver of time in the mid sixties when Baker (Hawke) was trying to clean up his act and romance his co-star Jenny (Ejogo) in a never completed film about his life. At the start he gets his face kicked in by drug dealers he owes money and told that the damage to his lips is such that he will never play again. Such is Baker's love of music though that he is determined to play again.
The structure means that most of Baker's worst excesses are only alluded to. Doubtless Budreau (making his second film about Baker) wanted to concentrate on the musician not the junky, which is a reasonable stance but largely undercut by him having to make everything up to do it. Baker did have to come back from a beating but not on the trumpet but the flugelhorn, the time scale was much longer than allowed here and Jenny is an invented figure.
I couldn't buy Hawke as a junky jazz man. In pictures the young Baker looks like a handsome Matt Smith type and slowly descends into Charles Manson with Shane McGowan's teeth. Hawke look's like grizzled wino Stan Laurel. Junkies, even one that are trying to get clean, are the definition of stuck in their ways, with Hawke you don't have that commitment, I sensed he would stub out that cigarette and tuck into a vegetarian dish the second the director called cut. He's the wrong kind of handsome, the role calls for a Matt Dillon type. Opposite him though Ejogo (Mrs MLK in Selma) is wonderful, and she doesn't even have a proper role to play. Jenny is so clearly written as a composite, a make do because the reality would be too hard to put on screen, but emotions flow out of her so readily, so easily and so truthfully that she gets you to buy into the unreality
Directed by Robert Budreau.
Starring Ethan Hawke, Carmen Ejogo, Callum Keith Rennie, Tony Nappo, Janet-Laine Green and Stephen McHattie. 90 mins.
I came into this with a sketchy knowledge of jazz trumpeter and vocalist Chet Baker – basically Let's Get Lost (his recording of, not the Bruce Weber documentary) and some anecdotes about what a horrible junky he was. The junky jazz musician biopic has a selection of well worn paths to take; none of which is the triumph over adversity arc Budreau carves out for his subject.
The film focuses on a really thin sliver of time in the mid sixties when Baker (Hawke) was trying to clean up his act and romance his co-star Jenny (Ejogo) in a never completed film about his life. At the start he gets his face kicked in by drug dealers he owes money and told that the damage to his lips is such that he will never play again. Such is Baker's love of music though that he is determined to play again.
The structure means that most of Baker's worst excesses are only alluded to. Doubtless Budreau (making his second film about Baker) wanted to concentrate on the musician not the junky, which is a reasonable stance but largely undercut by him having to make everything up to do it. Baker did have to come back from a beating but not on the trumpet but the flugelhorn, the time scale was much longer than allowed here and Jenny is an invented figure.
I couldn't buy Hawke as a junky jazz man. In pictures the young Baker looks like a handsome Matt Smith type and slowly descends into Charles Manson with Shane McGowan's teeth. Hawke look's like grizzled wino Stan Laurel. Junkies, even one that are trying to get clean, are the definition of stuck in their ways, with Hawke you don't have that commitment, I sensed he would stub out that cigarette and tuck into a vegetarian dish the second the director called cut. He's the wrong kind of handsome, the role calls for a Matt Dillon type. Opposite him though Ejogo (Mrs MLK in Selma) is wonderful, and she doesn't even have a proper role to play. Jenny is so clearly written as a composite, a make do because the reality would be too hard to put on screen, but emotions flow out of her so readily, so easily and so truthfully that she gets you to buy into the unreality
