This past week, The Hollywood News were invited to one of a series of events that are being staged across London as part of Heineken’s Open Your City campaign. The famous brand have linked up with the Picturehouse chain of cinemas across the capital to give Londoners Star Treatment, and to see some of the most exciting forthcoming film releases before anyone else. Such films as NORTHERN SOUL, NIGHTCRAWLER and the creepy, well received horror film THE BABADOOK, have all featured across the chain, including the Greenwich Picturehouse Greenwich, Hackney Picturehouse and the Clapham Picturehouse, which is where we find ourselves on a brisk October evening for the film ALL IS BY MY SIDE, a biopic of the legendary musician Jimi Hendrix.
You’ll always have THN on your side when you thrust some free popcorn and Heineken into their hands as they step into a cinema lobby, and that’s what happened here, and there truly was a great vibe amongst our fellow attendees as we waited for the film to start.
Officially released in cinemas this month, ALL IS BY MY SIDE (aka JIMI: ALL IS BY MY SIDE) stars Outkast frontman Andre Benjamin (aka Andre 3000) as Hendrix, alongside emerging British talents Hayley Attwell and Imogen Poots. The film focusses in on a year in the life of Hendrix between 1966 and 1967, when he journeyed to London where his career really started to take off (the events are set before the infamous Monterey Pop Festival, and pre-Woodstock). John Ridley, the Academy Award Winning screenwriter of the superb 12 YEARS A SLAVE, wrote the screenplay for the film and also steps behind the camera for the first time since the 1997 film COLD AROUND THE HEART, a little known crime drama starring golden-locked David Caruso and Kelly Lynch, which, didn’t really set the world alight.
Here, a post-Oscar Ridley opts for a particularly difficult follow-up project in a biopic that suffers from all kinds of problems; the biggest being the fact that the filmmakers were not granted permission from the Jimi Hendrix estate to use any of his back catalogue in the film, and this really shows in the final product. Instead of focussing on the music, Ridley opts to centre his attention towards a pre-fame Hendrix, and the relationships he holds with the supporting characters; particularly in Imogen Poots’s Linda Keith, the person credited for discovering the future rock legend, and girlfriend to some guitarist named Keith Richards.
I’m not the biggest Hendrix fan, and am really not too familiar with the story behind the legend so the absent music didn’t actually bother me that much. The story held me for the entire two hour running time, and the essence and spirit of London in the 1960s was captured, I thought, quite brilliantly. Sure, there are issues, but the superb cast make up for any shortcomings. The always brilliant Atwell and Poots were stands-outs, but none more so than the character at the front and centre of this engaging story. Benjamin is outstanding, and the role of Hendrix is one in which he was seemingly born to play, and indeed it’s very difficult to imagine anyone else in the shoes of the doomed star, and Benjamin lands it perfectly, even down to the subtleties and mannerisms of this fallen legend.
It might not be one for the die-hard fans, or even those with little to no interest in the subject, but for those of us that fall somewhere in between, it’s a pretty decent bit of storytelling, and a great night out at the pictures.
[usr=3] For your chance to be at the next screening and more visit http://startreatment.co/star-
