by Paul Costello
Biopics are always a risky game. It’s no small feat to attempt to translate to the big screen the story of someone whose life was big enough to warrant such treatment. This is the kind of process reserved only for people who were larger than life, who made an impact so great that the vast cinematic tablet is the only way to do their tale justice. However, the biopic, particularly the music biopic, has become something easy to replicate, to process, to parody even (see Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story for the pitch perfect example of that). If the people who deserve the biopics are themselves so distinctive, why would the collective attempts to tell their stories become so well-worn and commonplace? In Jimi: All Is by My Side, it’s in the hands of writer-director John Ridley to find a way to do justice to the life of rock music legend, Jimi Hendrix.
Biopics are always a risky game. It’s no small feat to attempt to translate to the big screen the story of someone whose life was big enough to warrant such treatment. This is the kind of process reserved only for people who were larger than life, who made an impact so great that the vast cinematic tablet is the only way to do their tale justice. However, the biopic, particularly the music biopic, has become something easy to replicate, to process, to parody even (see Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story for the pitch perfect example of that). If the people who deserve the biopics are themselves so distinctive, why would the collective attempts to tell their stories become so well-worn and commonplace? In Jimi: All Is by My Side, it’s in the hands of writer-director John Ridley to find a way to do justice to the life of rock music legend, Jimi Hendrix.
There is a very early problem that occurs in Jimi: All Is by My Side, long before the first frame is even captured. The production’s request to the Hendrix estate for the rights to use the music of the late guitarist in their film was refused… As such, there is not one single Hendrix song in the entire film. No Purple Haze… no Fire… no Crosstown Traffic… no Stone Free… nothing. Now, this isn’t something insignificant in the grand scheme of telling Hendrix’s story, a minor technicality that can be overlooked. The sonic landscape created by Jimi Hendrix in his songs is a huge part of identifying the man and what he wanted to make with his talent, marking him apart from his contemporaries, who even then looked on and saw someone beyond all of them.
Now, this is certainly a big hurdle (some would say an insurmountable one), but Ridley has tried to take an alternate route, telling the story of the time before Hendrix became Hendrix, when he was taken from obscurity in New York and transported to London where he could make a splash and mix with some of the biggest bands in the world. This was a time before Purple Haze, and there are moments from this part of Hendrix’s life that are certainly worth seeing, that simply couldn’t be neglected and that find their place here (Hendrix’s infamous upstaging of God himself, Eric Clapton, being one).
Now, this is certainly a big hurdle (some would say an insurmountable one), but Ridley has tried to take an alternate route, telling the story of the time before Hendrix became Hendrix, when he was taken from obscurity in New York and transported to London where he could make a splash and mix with some of the biggest bands in the world. This was a time before Purple Haze, and there are moments from this part of Hendrix’s life that are certainly worth seeing, that simply couldn’t be neglected and that find their place here (Hendrix’s infamous upstaging of God himself, Eric Clapton, being one).
As writer and director of the film, Ridley has attempted to overcome the noticeable lack of Hendrix’s sonic signature on the soundtrack by making an alternative form of adaptation. Specifically, through an atypical rhythm of editing, both in visuals and sound design, there seems to be an effort towards finding a filmic equivalent of Hendrix’s auditory texture. It is, in honesty, largely a wasted effort since it actually ends up making the film seem clumsily flung together, unfinished, even amateur. It’s certainly a swing for originality, which should always be welcome in the world of the musical biopic, but when the resultant effect is one of visceral fracture that obfuscates more than illuminates, it is perhaps all for nought.
The film does find strength in its cast, though. Performances from Andrew Buckley, Imogen Poots and Hayley Atwell are all on point and do very well for themselves. However, André Benjamin (aka André 3000 of OutKast) is on another level. Benjamin has nailed Hendrix’s vocal intonations, his easy physicality, and translated them all into a performance that does capture something of the man’s essence onscreen. It is perhaps a real shame that Ridley’s script seems so often uninterested in its own titular lead.
The film does find strength in its cast, though. Performances from Andrew Buckley, Imogen Poots and Hayley Atwell are all on point and do very well for themselves. However, André Benjamin (aka André 3000 of OutKast) is on another level. Benjamin has nailed Hendrix’s vocal intonations, his easy physicality, and translated them all into a performance that does capture something of the man’s essence onscreen. It is perhaps a real shame that Ridley’s script seems so often uninterested in its own titular lead.
The greatest flaw of Jimi: All Is by My Side is that, ultimately, it is too easy to lose sight of the man at the centre of the film. As good as Benjamin is in the role, it just makes it so frustrating that the camera so often looks away, apparently more interested in establishing a sense of the time that Hendrix occupied, lighting on random strangers discussing war or societal shifts in Britain and America, about which Hendrix remains apparently either ignorant or indifferent. Is this Ridley’s attempt to establish Hendrix as a man somehow above such concerns, espousing something more spiritual as an antidote to the contentious matters of the day? Perhaps, but it actually just makes Hendrix seem kind of flaky and dismissive more than anything else.
Jimi: All Is by My Side may be fairly unique in its approach to telling the story of a part of Hendrix’s life, but it never recovers from being completely devoid of the man’s music, and the structural attempts to compensate do it few favours either. Performances are good, and André Benjamin is eerily accurate in the lead, but the film that surrounds them is simply not up to the task of telling Jimi Hendrix’s story, which is probably the biggest disservice that a biopic could ever do: failing to explain why the subject deserves to have their story told on film in the first place. Jimi Hendrix deserved better than this.
Jimi: All Is by My Side may be fairly unique in its approach to telling the story of a part of Hendrix’s life, but it never recovers from being completely devoid of the man’s music, and the structural attempts to compensate do it few favours either. Performances are good, and André Benjamin is eerily accurate in the lead, but the film that surrounds them is simply not up to the task of telling Jimi Hendrix’s story, which is probably the biggest disservice that a biopic could ever do: failing to explain why the subject deserves to have their story told on film in the first place. Jimi Hendrix deserved better than this.
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