Movie Muser

It may seem strange that there has never been a big, mainstream biopic of Jimi Hendrix. The man is such a cultural icon that even those poor misguided people who don’t know or like his music recognise him. He was a guitarist so freakishly talented that he knocked Eric Clapton off the top spot to be crowned by Rolling Stone as the greatest in the world. And he was a black American who conquered the charts first in Britain and then the USA at a time when the struggle of the Civil Rights movement was at its peak. And then, at the height of his powers, he died at a tragically early age becoming one of the founder members of the infamous ’27 Club’.

Hendrix lived an incredible life so why has his story not yet been given the Walk the Line or Ray treatment? Well, depressingly, the answer is all to do with red tape. The rights to Hendrix’s music were won by his estranged father Al Hendrix in 1995 and when he passed away in 2002 they went to his adopted daughter who allegedly had only met Jimi twice when she was nine years old. And the estate will not allow the music to be used in any film unless they are directly involved in its production. This clause has stopped a lot of previous attempts to tell the story of Jimi before they’ve got off the ground. After all, to get a film make the filmmakers would have to either give up all creative control to the estate or make a movie about Jimi Hendrix that features none of his music. And obviously that would be unthinkable.

Well, not according to 12 Years a Slave screenwriter John Ridley. He’s both writer and director here and has decided that not having access to Hendrix’ music should not be an obstacle to telling his story. And while the film does have an excellent 60s soundtrack including Bob Dylan, The Animals and Small Faces, whenever Hendrix himself gets on stage we simply get bland, generic bluesy rock. Ridley has chosen a fairly narrow chapter of the story to tell, the film begins with Hendrix (Andre Benjamin) meeting Keith Richards lady friend Linda Keith (Imogen Poots) in a New York club before being introduced to former Animals bassist Chas Chandler (Andrew Buckley) who becomes Hendrix’ manager and unleashes him on the London music scene. London is where Hendrix meets and falls in love with Kathy Etchingham (Hayley Atwell) and the film is mainly concerned with telling the story of their turbulent relationship.

The relationship is a good deal more turbulent than it was in real life according to Etchingham, who has publicly stated her opposition to the film. Her main issue is with one particular scene in which Hendrix is violent to her; something she says never happened and is completely out of character for the man she knew. It’s not unusual for filmmakers to take liberties with their subject’s lives to make them more interesting; Oliver Stone did the same with Jim Morrison. But when you know that this scene didn’t happen it makes it seem like Ridley is simply defaming a dead man in order to make him a more compelling and flawed character, and this leaves a bad taste.

Ridley is a veteran screenwriter but a relatively inexperienced director, having only a few TV episodes and a little-seen 90s thriller to his name. He does give All Is By My Side a few unusual directorial quirks that both help overcome it’s small budget and give it an interesting, semi-documentary feel. One of the most interesting is his use of still images and archive footage; for example when Hendrix arrives in London we get a brief montage of images of swinging London juxtaposed with gritty black and white footage of civil rights protests. And when Hendrix calls his father we see only still images of the man and his home. And then there’s the way captions appear whenever an actor portraying a famous person appears to let us know who it’s supposed to be. It’s an unusual approach that unfortunately often makes the movie feel like a student project.

The cast are all interesting enough with the exception of Imogen Poots. Maybe she has given some amazing performances that I haven’t seen but it seems to me that she approaches every role she plays by shrieking in a posh accent. Good God she’s irritating. Hayley Atwell is much more composed and dignified and gives a sterling performance as a woman enjoying her lover’s fame while worrying about losing him to it. Andre Benjamin is the real surprise though. He’s still probably best known as a musician and one half of Outkast and I still haven’t forgiven him for that terrible, terrible song ‘Hey Ya’ from which I couldn’t escape a decade or so ago. But, despite being a good 13 years older than Hendrix was when he died he’s eerily convincing and captures the man’s mannerisms and voice to a tee. It’s just a shame he wasn’t allowed to have a go at any of his songs.

But despite some good parts All Is By My Side is a very unsatisfactory whole. Even if you can put aside the lack of Hendrix music which, let’s face it, is a pretty integral part of his story, it still feels like a hollow experience. The story seems to skim over Jimi’s story without delving deep into the interesting parts. And then it just suddenly ends. Ridley obviously decided that what interested him was Jimi’s life before he became world famous but the way the film cuts to black just as he’s on the cusp of becoming an icon just makes it feel like you’ve watched part one of a two part TV series. And to be honest, if that was the case, you probably wouldn’t bother tuning back in for part two.

Overall Verdict: Unable to overcome the hurdle of not having any of Hendrix’ music All is By My Side is occasionally interesting but incredibly slow and infuriatingly shallow. There is a great movie waiting to be made about the life and career of Jimi Hendrix; this is not it.

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Reviewer: Adam Pidgeon