Worth: $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
David Byrne, Jacqueline Acevedo, Gustavo Di Dalva
Intro:
…incredibly well staged, the performers are amazingly tight and seemingly inexhaustible, and Byrne’s patter is sharp and acerbic.
America is obviously not a utopia – nowhere is – so David Byrne’s well-established sense of irony is apparent here even in the very title. There are, however, also moments of unselfconscious joy and passion in the course of this doco. Not to mention anger about various contemporary issues.
The original American Utopia was an album, co-written by Byrne and Brian Eno. What we have here is the Broadway show – its season started in late 2019 – which featured songs from the album plus a generous quotient of (mostly earlyish) Talking Heads songs. But to say that there’s a lot more to the show than that would be a huge understatement.
What’s singular about it is that Byrne is accompanied by eleven musicians and dancers, many of them percussionists – and all of them “untethered”, i.e. not plugged in to anything – who leap tirelessly about the stage from beginning to end. And all this is somehow achieved, we are assured, without any use of playback. They and Byrne are, incidentally, all clad in identical grey suits.
There are inspired moments, certainly, best of all being a sublimely beautiful a cappella version of “One Fine Day”. And the audience is clearly enraptured.
Spike Lee’s directorial style is not particularly evident here; the connection is more one of attitude. This is a fairly straightforward recording of a show, spectacular aerial shots, ‘chessboard’ effects and monochromatic lighting notwithstanding. As such, its appeal is simply a question of whether you’re drawn to the music, its predominantly funky treatment and the performance itself. The latter is incredibly well staged, the performers are amazingly tight and seemingly inexhaustible, and Byrne’s patter is sharp and acerbic. But the whole thing is arguably a bit less than the sum of its parts.
