For the love of Rock

ock and roll, to those who truly love it, is about more than just music-it's about attitude, about "cool." As reverential critic and grown fanboy Lester Bangs dubs it in Almost Famous, it's the "Industry of Cool," thriving on the fantastical, mythic constructions of its star heroes as they are fed to the idolizing fans.

Almost Famous deconstructs the myths that divide fan and idol and explores the seemingly great distance between these two poles-the star and the 15-year-old scraggly-haired boy. Like any Cameron Crowe film, sentimentality and nostalgia abound, but this is a film that anyone who has ever truly loved a band can identify with.

This fairy tale finds 15-year-old William Miller (newcomer Patrick Fugit, wide-eyed and flabbergasted through most of the film in the semi-autobiographical role of Crowe himself) whisked away on a fateful assignment from Rolling Stone to follow on tour with fledgling band Stillwater. It's a journey through the Never Neverland of rock with the Lost Boys: the band is on the brink of breaking into the spotlight behind the magnetic presence of lead guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup), who serves as both Peter Pan and Captain Hook to the inexperienced, vulnerable William. Despite his role as a reporter, William gradually becomes more enthralled with the band and its ragtag female entourage (they prefer to be known as "Band-Aids" rather than groupies). Kate Hudson, their leader, who goes by the moniker "Penny Lane" (think Tinkerbell), is marvelous in her dual role as William's surrogate mother and first love.

For a coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of a Behind the Music episode, very little actually happens in Almost Famous. The story drags its feet through hotel rooms, bus rides and back stages, at times without direction or purpose. There are no telling moments that reveal even a spark of the magic that drives the band toward success, so emotional highs and lows like those that Cuba Gooding Jr.'s Ron Tidwell brought to Jerry Maguire are sadly absent.

However, this movie isn't about the band-others have done the rockers-gone-wild satire in bigger and better ways. Crowe focuses more on how William is affected by what he sees and how his role as a fan affects his relationship with the band. The director anchors William with two fairy godmother figures who watch over his journey via telephone to insure that his integrity remains true. First, William's mother (played with an electrifying maternal zeal by Frances McDormand) hovers over her "kidnapped" son as his conscience, with a humorous but affecting tone of maternal urgency. Over his other shoulder is music critic idol Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman, great as usual), who delivers the movie's final prophecy: "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool."

Hoffman, as the paternal voice of Rock, reveals this, the movie's big message, in his mere three or four scenes as the über-fan sitting at home alone with his stacks of vinyls. Rather than mythical legend or magical fantasy, this "currency" of uncool proves to be the real bond that unites all-both fans and stars-in their love of rock and roll.