Still Crazy

Strange Fruit were a big band in the seventies. Then everything fell apart at a festival; the singer disappeared, the band fought and they never played again. Twenty years pass. Tony, the old keyboard player, gets an offer: the same festival is being staged again and they want the band. Tony starts looking for the others. Everyone has built another life; one roofs houses, one has gone bankrupt, one is ill. The guitarist does not want to come. The band gathers and rehearsals begin. The fight from twenty years ago is still standing there. Brian Gibson directs; Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais wrote the screenplay. Stephen Rea, Billy Connolly, Jimmy Nail, Timothy Spall and Bill Nighy are in the cast. It is a British production. Bill Nighy was nominated at the Golden Globes for his part. The songs were written for the project and the actors sang their own numbers. The matter it treats is the comeback; the film builds it as a reckoning rather than a triumph. The narration belongs to the keyboard player and he tells the band's history. The film also shows the music business; royalties, rights to a name and management are taken as direct subjects. The narrative glorifies no character and does not give in to nostalgia. Its limit is structure; the shape is familiar and the last section too tidy. Who it is for: viewers who like British music comedy and stories about bands. Who it is not for: it is predictable, the pace uneven, and the ending familiar.