'Taking Woodstock'

On The Aisle

By Tony Macklin

“Taking Woodstock” tells a story about the monumental, historic music happening on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in the Catskills in 1969. The movie is homogenized mud. Director Ang Lee slides all over the place. He takes away all the sharp edges; what is left is pretty much a mess.

“Taking Woodstock” is a kind of feel-good movie. Kind of. But the sitcom elements keep it stuck in the mire. I can see “Taking Woodstock” made into a bad TV situation comedy. The Age of Aquarius is dead; the Age of Shtick never dies.

Lee is often a first-rate director; he won an Oscar for directing “Brokeback Mountain.” There he had an effective screenplay, which won an Oscar for adaptation.

With “Taking Woodstock,” Lee labors with a mediocre script by James Schamus from a book that Elliot Teichberg wrote (under the pseudonym Elliot Tiber) with Tom Monte.

The screenplay lops 10 years off the 34-year old Elliot’s age, and shazam! it instantly becomes a coming of age story. But it still has the creaky sensibility of coming out of middle age. It’s like Tom Brokaw looking back at the ’60s.

“Taking Woodstock” is the story of a “young” man Elliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin), who has come home to upstate New York to try to help his parents keep their failing, ramshackle motel open. His father, Jake, (Henry Goodman) is repressed, and his mother Sonia (Imelda Staunton) is a harpy.

Elliot has a permit, which allows the concert to find a home. “Taking Woodstock” is about the trials and tribulations of bringing the fabled event to fruition. Meanwhile Elliot is finding himself.

What most bogs down the film is that schlocky screenwriter Schamus is dealing with mom issues. The mother seems to come from another movie. She makes Marie Barone (“Everybody Loves Raymond”) seem serene. The mother in “Taking Woodstock” is the Mother of all Odium. She is racist, bigoted, greedy, shrill and loudmouthed. What’s not to love?

I assume she may scare the bejesus out of some mother-dominated souls in the audience. When her husband tells Elliot that he has stayed with her because he “loves” her, the audience collectively goes, “huh?” She’s a rabid cow.

While very unfortunate in his screenwriter, Lee is fortunate in his cast. Martin is earnest and vulnerable as the put-upon Elliot, and Liev Schreiber is terrific as the cross-dressing ex-marine Vilma. Jonathan Groff is appealing as a hippie entrepreneur, who keeps the project on its wayward course. Emile Hirsch plays a hyper Vietnam vet. And Mamie Gummer (Merle Streep’s daughter) is winsome as an earth-loving girl.

Emile Hirsch stars as Billy in “Taking Woodstock”

Imelda Staunton, who was a mean-spirited teacher in “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” is registering the patent on mean with Sonia.

One wonders what director Milos Forman would have done with the materials of “Taking Woodstock.” Forman always is potently humanistic in his vision and execution, for example “Hair.” He never would allow the mother to descend to the caterwauling figure Lee does.

Lee tries to be humanistic, but he winds up playing games — poker, bridge, slapjack. He can’t decide which card to play.

“Taking Woodstock” takes both the value and the spirit out of an historic event. “Taking Woodstock” is two movies. One tries to be a warm glow about Woodstock. The other is post-adolescent prattle. Woodstock was never prattle.