‘Taking Woodstock’ missing the substance
They aren’t words you hear very often: an Ang Lee comedy.
He hasn’t really made one since he directed “The Wedding Banquet” and “Eat Drink Man Woman” back-to-back in 1993 and 1994.
And so, on the heels of the emotionally heavy “Brokeback Mountain” and “Lust, Caution,” Lee lightens up with “Taking Woodstock” – and the result is too lightweight.
He approaches the fabled three-day concert from an outsider’s angle, which is admirably innovative; truly, the significance and influence of Woodstock have been chronicled ad nauseam, especially lately on its 40th anniversary.
But in telling the story of the people who inadvertently launched the event, Lee leaves out the substance. Rather, he ambles amiably among these motley figures, with civic leader Elliot Tiber (comic Demetri Martin) at the center.
Elliot, a New York City interior designer, happens to have moved back home with his Russian immigrant parents (Henry Goodman and an over-the-top Imelda Staunton) to help them salvage their run-down Catskills motel.
An arts and music festival in a neighboring town happens to have lost its permit. As president of the Bethel Chamber of Commerce, Elliot thinks it would boost the economy to play host instead – and he just happens to know a guy named Max Yasgur (Eugene Levy) who owns a 600-acre dairy farm, the perfect place for such an event.
So Elliot reaches out to Woodstock producer Michael Lang, puts him in touch with Max, turns the motel into the concert’s headquarters and voila! History is born. It’s just that easy in a movie where there seems to be zero conflict.
Eventually, the hippies get wind of the show’s new location and descend on this rural area, the magnitude of which Lee depicts vividly through one long tracking shot as Elliot winds his way through traffic on the back of a police motorcycle. It’s a rare moment that feels organic and alive, as if anything could happen at any time.
There’s no real sense of the music; then again, the performances have been so famously documented elsewhere, namely in the Oscar-winning 1970 concert film “Woodstock,” it was probably wise of Lee to avoid trying to re-create them.
Instead, we hear some songs from far away, lilting over the hills, and at one point during an obligatory acid trip Elliot witnesses the teeming masses as waves of humanity undulating in front of the stage.
It’s not his only moment of discovery: Elliot comes out as a gay man during this time. Rather than making a big deal out of this in a tortured or cliched way, “Taking Woodstock” just sort of lets it happen, then drops it.
Like Martin’s sweet but placid performance – and the film in general – it ends up being forgettable, when it could have taken a little piece of your heart.