At a bare minimum, this should have been a miniseries. Not Fade Away rushes through the sixties, minimally punctuated with cultural markers. While this rambling approach has been criticized, it gives the sixties a sense of being a swerving series of false starts, lulls, and occasional successes rather than a slow buildup to Haight-Ashbury or Woodstock. My biggest problem with the film - apart from the strange and unnecessary bookends - was wanting to spend more time with these characters and to enjoy more of the beautiful moments that writer/director David Chase crafted.
The small references and unique touches Chase included allow the film to mostly overcome the "1960s bildungsroman" base that is pretty exhausted at this point. The incredibly devious band members, the choking-on-a-joint incident, and having Douglas (John Magaro) praise Robert Johnson/Son House's blues to a black man (Landers - played by Isiah Whitlock Jr.) who only listens to the popular white interpretations of the blues all add to the provincial perspective on the Sixties. Instead of the usual big city/"someone meets the Stones" fare we usually see, the film follows Douglas, his band, and his family through their various issues in suburban New Jersey with mercifully-brief mentions of Sixties touchstones.
Despite these strengths, a film was not the correct medium for what is mostly a series of scenes based around Douglas' post-high school journey. Yes, he is our protagonist I suppose, but with a wealth of supporting characters (Jack Huston's menacing ex-frontman Eugene, Will Brill's seemingly-dopey Wells, Dominique McElligott's out-there Joy, Gandolfini's conflicted Pat, and Bella Heathcote's cryptic Grace) it felt as though we could have seen a few seasons of television play out around this community. The film format forced down Chase's running time to 112 minutes, but the best parts of "Not Fade Away" are the wandering, open-ended scenes rather than the loose thread stringing them all together.
* The comparison that kept springing to mind was Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes, a solid New Jersey Rock/R&B band that had their own takes on classics (Sam Cooke's "Having a Party") and offered a few catchy tunes of their own ("I Don't Want to Go Home"). Incidentally, the band's songwriter during their heyday was "Miami/"Little" Steve Van Zandt, who serves as the film's music supervisor and is a prominent member of the E Street Band.
Crew & Cast
Written & Directed by David Chase
Cast
John Magaro - Douglas
Jack Huston - Eugene
Will Brill - Wells
Dominique McElligott - Joy Deitz
James Gandolfini - Pat
Bella Heathcote - Grace Dietz