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RATING:   
SINGAPORE - If you're hoping for a history lesson on the legendary Woodstock Music & Art Fair, rent Michael Wadleigh’s seminal 1970 documentary.Because Lee Ang’s "Taking Woodstock" is less about the iconic concert itself (you don’t see it at all!) and more about the spirit it embodied.
A semi-faithful adaptation of the historical account given a key bystander, the film tells the story of Elliot (Demetri Martin), a closeted young man prepared to give up his dreams to help parents Sonia and Jake (Imelda Staunton and Henry Goodman in astounding performances) cling on to their rundown motel in upstate New York.
However, their lives change when the organisers of Woodstock lose their original location, and Elliot ends up arranging for the event to be relocated to the farm of his neighbour Max Yasgur (Eugene Levy), with the motel serving as festival headquarters.
Lee’s direction is sometimes meandering and unfocused, but his ability to take us back to those seminal moments with all the right details - the traffic, mud, drugs and backstage mania - saves his film and intriguingly captures the essence of something as huge and indefinable as Woodstock. Clever casting also works in his favour, with comedian Martin suitably awkward and Liev Schreiber superbly effective as a burly ex-Marine transvestite.
At times a colourful yet idealistic depiction of counter-culture’s evocation of the power of love, peace and music, "Taking Woodstock" is also a sarcastic comedic commentary about the misguided notions of hippie past, gay liberation and effects of Vietnam. - TODAY/ar
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