When is a biopic about Pavement not a biopic about Pavement? When it’s Pavements. This film, written and directed by Alex Ross Perry eschews a linear rock doc narrative, exactly as you’d expect for an American indie band who are a mass of contradictions: with a sound forever torn between sleepy and frenetic; loose and intellectual, playing the commercial game then splitting as they got legendary, before reforming again.
This being a Pavement film, there’s a twist. It’s half documentary, half parody. Hyperbole sees them as the biggest band in the world, and there’s a museum to them and a musical being created about their raw genius. Whilst this conceit is amusing, with good performances from Tim Heidecker and Jason Schwartzman, there’s a sense of try- hard humour with jokes that don’t always land. Obviously it’s lampooning the “hipper than thou” indie kid culture, but ‘Portlandia’ did that first. It also parodies Austin Butler’s method approach to playing Elvis, and the cringeworthy earnestness of musical theatre.
Ironically though, for such a wilfully playful band, it’s the genuine documentary side that serves the film better. For example, the footage of original drummer Gary Young’s struggles with alcoholism are quite touching. I vividly remember his erratic behaviour at a Pavement show circa ’91, and put it down to youthful hijinks. It’s sad to see his descent in these backstage clips.
And Stephen Malkmus, Steve West and co are such fun, frequently ridiculous characters that they don’t really need to be augmented with the additional spoof material. A band with lines like, “it took a giant ramrod to raze the demon settlement” in one of their best loved songs (Stereo) has enough chops to merit a more straightforward documentary- which is obviously the last thing they’d want. It’s actually rare for me to say that, too. Regardless, it’s still well worth sticking with.
Available on Mubi and Amazon.
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