First, you must put the original Frank out of your head

Rating: 4/10 (14 May 2014)

I think that to enjoy this film first you must put any memories of Chris Sievey's comic persona Frank Sidebottom out of your head! This Frank persona has similarities to Chris Sievey's but there is nothing common about the story of this character.
Overall this is reasonably enjoyable film. It is the story of a fictional alternative rock group fronted by Frank. If you have followed alternative rock groups you might recognise bits of the story. I saw some similarities with the story of Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band.
There are a good number of humorous moments and ideas but the film never becomes more than being entertainment. There are no real surprises about the main character and it is not a study of a real problem, Chris Sievey was not a man unable to ever remove his false head, for example, so that problem as described in the film is not real. There is nothing particularly imaginative about the treatment of that issue. However there is a lot of fun about Frank's always wearing of that head and what that is like for the people around him.
The film is set in the present day however Frank and his group live in an earlier period in their minds. They have no knowledge of Facebook and mobile devices seem a mystery to them. The whole feel of the group is 70s. Their creation of music made me think of Henry Cow but it didn't sound like that. The group are set against the modern world to a degree. They record their music onto a big open reel tape recorder, one of them plays a theremin. They spend a substantial part of the film in a retreat in rural Ireland. All of this reinforces that the group is a mini-cult, shut off from the bigger world.
There is one mildly clever revelation in the film about the dynamic between the characters.
All the acting is very good, direction, camera work and editing are also really good. It contains many clever ideas.
The problem with the film is that it is just less than the sum of its parts.