David Chase's Not Fade Away is an exercise in nostalgia in a competent order, meaning that those who enjoy or, above all, relate to the events in the film will appreciate it the most. I'm stuck in the position where I often find my self; on the corner of admiration and disappointment.
Stylistically, David Chase (TV's The Soprano's) and cinematographer Eigil Bryld (Netflix's own TV series House of Cards) couldn't have made a more bleeding-gums representation of the 1960's if they tried. It looks marvelous in all its polished, minimalist glory. Thematically and applicably, there should've been so much more of a story to tell about a garage band that never made it despite determination to "not fade away." For this reason, the film can be viewed as one where talents embrace culture, chew scenery, and nothing more.
The story concerns Douglas (John Magaro), a young man in the 1960's during a time of The Vietnam War and inevitable social change. Family values and daintiness are becoming more lenient, and views on the war divide parents, who sat back and formed opinions on it, and teenagers who had to fight it. Douglas decides to round up a few pals and start a garage band with intent to "make it big" like the iconic Beatles and Rolling Stones. Faced with loud opposition from his demanding bigot of a father (James Gandolfini) and attachment to his girlfriend (Meg Guzulescu), Douglas must now keep a band together without alienating those close to him.
This is a story that through heatbreak, aspirations, and prolific failures could've made a gripping film and possibly an emotional one. The downside is through Chase's direction does the film feel sterile and ill-equipped. He doesn't seem to possess any form of relation or personal resonance with his characters, and this awkward coldness halts the film's ability to allow its audience to admire if even differentiate the teenagers the sixties was known to birth.
What we are left with, predominately, is an egg with a firm, ambitious, beautifully crisp shell, but sub-par, underwhelming contents. "Style over substance" would seem to be an appropriate term, but I hesitate to even call it that seeing as social order, parental discrepancies, and culture shock - all easy items to exclude or nudge out of bounds - are touched on and explored considerably. One of the tensest scenes, and arguably the best, is when Douglas is at dinner with many of his relatives, remaining silent while they discuss emerging culture and minorities in a wonderfully ethnocentric way. Douglas is ostracized and belittled for his optimism on his garage band project and his long, "hippie" hair before telling off his father and exiting the room.
Chase definitely understands complex changes of norms and societal disconnect between parents and youths. However, his apparent lack of interest in his characters, giving them a shocking lack of depth and personality, undermines the power Not Fade Away could've head if it resonated with its target audience (those now in their forties or fifties). Yet, its characters are as vacant as clip-art pictures of teenagers from the time period. There's a powerful, life-affirming, deeply involving story in the material Not Fade Away provides and I anxiously await its telling by a director with more of an attitude and opinion on the subject.
Starring: John Magaro, Meg Guzulescu, and James Gandolfini. Directed by: David Chase.
