It's all about glitter and style

Rating: Null/10 (6 May 2000)

Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine is an ambitious film about the lives and loves of the front-runners of the glam-rock explosion that dominated much of the early 70s. Starting with a reference to the writer and poet, Oscar Wilde, this film deals with all things interesting, intriguing, intelligent and beautiful. Jonathan Rhys Meyers stars as glam-rock giant, Brian Slade, aka Maxwell Demon, who in 1974, at the height of his fame and popularity, was assasinated on stage. A few weeks later, however, the whole incident was found to be a hoax. Brain Slade was never to be seen again. Or so everyone thought. Among the audience on the night of his apparent death, was young fan, Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale - Metroland and more recently, the controversial adaptation of American Psycho). Cut to 10 years later, and Stuart is living in New York as a journalist. On the 10th anniversary of Slade's "death", Stuart is asked to write an article on him, where is he now? what's he doing? For Stuart, researching this story means finding out exactly what he was like with his wife, Mandy (superbly portrayed by Muriel's Wedding's star, Toni Collette) and his turbulent affair with fellow rock superstar, Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor). It also means that Stuart has to delve into his own past which more than heavily featured the lives of Slade and Wild. Ultimately, though, his research leads to shock revelations about what really happened to Brian Slade. Featuring top quality performances from all involved, Velvet Goldmine does not fail to entertain. Any glam-rock fan will be more than satisfied with the musical aspect of the film which sees Ewan McGregor strutting his stuff as Iggy Pop, with his fabulous rendition of "TV Eye". There could however be an aspect of die-hard fans feeling somewhat betrayed by what this film is implying. There is after all, no secret about who the characters Brian Slade and Curt Wild are allegedly not based on but what the hell? The film is exciting, fun, captivating and above all, just gorgeous.