An average movie

Since I'm a big fan if Ang Lee's work, I was really eager to check this movie and I'm surprised it took me so long to finally see the damned thing. Well, to be honest, it wasn't really good, I'm afraid. I mean, sure, it wasn't bad either but, with such great material, it is rather surprising that such a fine director didn't manage to come up with something better than this. Indeed, I have always been fascinated by Woodstock and it was a great idea to see this event through the eyes of a local kid who, completely by accident, ended up being involved in the greatest concert of all time but, except for a few real nice scenes usually involving the concert itself, I can't say I cared much about the damned thing. It is pretty obvious that Ang Lee tried to go for the typical quirky indie comedy vibe and, with Woodstock as background, it could have worked but I was rather surprised about how underwhelming the whole thing turned out to be. The main issue, in my opinion, is that the main character was not interesting enough and his personal family drama was even less interesting/entertaining. For example, Imelda Staunton had the thankless job of playing his awful mother and while this character was maybe supposed to be funny,  she was just really cringe-inducing to behold. Still, Ang Lee did manage to recreate the incredible atmosphere of this event  (at least, what it must have been since I haven't been there, unfortunately) but pretty much everything else barely worked. To conclude,  even though it didn't live up to my expectations, I still think it is worth a look  but I'm afraid it is probably one of the weakest movies delivered by Ang Lee so far.

6/10