Fake Head, True Filmmaking

Rating: 8/10 (15 December 2014)

Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), a wanna-be musician whose songwriting is crappy at best, joins by chance a weird pop band, quite indie, quite insane. The leader, singer and songwriter is Frank, a charismatic front man who always wears a big fake head. A rather promising story I reckon... There are great actors on board, like Michael Fassbender, Maggie Gyllenhaal or Domnhall Gleeson, but music is the main character here. It is not a musical, it is more how music struggles to be business, or something artistic or even mystic.It is at this point that both Fassbender and Gyllenhaal nail it as tortured but gifted souls that create music, because let's not kid ourselves here, ordinary people don't usually create something like "OK Computer" (Radiohead, 1997, EMI Records). Jon begins his own journey from being that normal person to someone that witness that artistic epiphany that we as fans can only enjoy. It is quite a way to describe the process of songwriting ( I will not keep talking about this since I am not a musician), but as far as filmmaking is concerned, this is indie at its best. Dense, compelling and let's say it, hipster, at least aesthetically; it is not that original, nor is it classical, it is more erratic, inspiring even...It seemed to me like those records that leave no impression on that first listening, but that in time tends to become the most appreciated song pieces in your mind.