By Joe Hammerschmidt
[NOTE: This film previously reviewed as part of the 2018 Seattle International Film Festival]
It now seems like an eternity ago, taking my initial surveillance of the almost biblically stacked SIFF lineup. But when the festival organizers plan a filmmaker tribute, they really do not flatfoot around. Two representations of his work, on varying ends of the spectrum, had appeared for sold-out crowds, a small fraction of an otherwise endless legion of fans. The leading figure has shown no wavering in his creative pursuits: one Ethan Hawke, the hero or anti-hero of Reality Bites, the Before trilogy, and during festival, the bittersweet heart-palpate First Reformed. He’s impossibly professional as an actor, yet not knowing his abilities as a director may have lent the wrong message back to me with the second film he had opted to bring to Seattle. Musical biopics are usually a tough subgenre nut to crack; Blaze is yet another victim of its heart being in the right place if it were stuck in an absent-minded direction. Not gonna say Hawke played the story incredibly half-assed, but he didn’t make it easy to watch either. It’s as compelling as it overly lapses, spellbinding as it painfully boring. Those combinations don’t entirely lend to a satisfying feature work, his fourth as director following 2014’s Seymour: An Introduction, and one I’d have extracted more out of with the proper research done.
Do not be disappointed if you are relatively unfamiliar with Blaze Foley, the title character. Be prepared to remember the talents of his actor, first-timer Ben Dickey, a musician by trade. Even if the rest of the film is a likely write-off, he’s the only thing making the journey all that tolerable. Through triumph, defeat, and a small streak of career-breaking foolishness, Foley is shown as the supposed anti-hero Hawke himself would often aim for, in a staunch mentor-mentee relationship between actor and director. An obscure figure until earlier this decade, Foley’s story (adapted from the memoir of wife Sybil Rosen) takes a very distracting, yet lyrical approach. On one side, there’s the man, a loveable court jester type singer and his puppy-love sweetheart, the rebellious Jewish girl escaping her control freak parents (Alia Shawkat).
Going from a treehouse in the middle of the woods, to touring the deep south by way of hitchhiking, the world is their oyster, yet he cannot imagine himself as an iconic star, more of an underground musician just looking for an even break. Constant alcoholism doesn’t help his case, as emphasized on the other side of the coin, in an extended set at a small bar just before his accidental homicide in 1989, himself scraggly yet not entirely drunk as in the past. Lending added clarity are more candid, intimate moments between Blaze and frequent sparring partner Townes Van Zandt (fellow musician Charlie Sexton), in the recording session for an extended radio interview. Appropriately enough, these conversations play as suitable bookends to the story, yet don’t offer much in the way of balancing out what is essentially three different POVs intertwined by some questionable editing decisions at the hand of multi-screen familiar Jason Gourson (Father of the Year). Bit of a pity, when much of the film’s seasonal look, expertly shot by Steve Cosens (Born to Be Blue), opens up a sensation of natural light splashed against a storybook-like backdrop, and all for the benefit of a handful of key outdoor and backroad scenes highlighting a burgeoning relationship.
I knew I could see myself growing invested in Blaze’s creative journey over time, but Hawke is too eager to push too many elements into the mixer at one time, thereby overstepping the likely boundaries of a musical biopic, and personally speaking, overstaying its welcome in a TMI sense. Had it been maybe 20 minutes shorter, and more driven by the romance, how that played a role in Foley’s music, I knew it’d be easier to fall for. How each perspective on the complex individual combines with each other, it’s far too distracting for its own good. Seeing multiple POVs on one person’s legacy would often help show more sides to an otherwise singular story, but Hawke is just inept to the desires of keeping each backstory a little tighter, a little more open to interweaving. We’re just cutting back and forth between all three without much leadup or hurryup, we cut away when convenient, and it’s not at all flattering.
And again, that’s a disappointing outcome for an electric screen couple like Dickey and Shawkat; I may be too bold to say they’re among the strongest platonic pairings this year. They commit, they get mad, they’re meant to be yet also determined to pull away at the first sign of everything going awry. It’s all 100% convincing, that should be plenty for someone to take notice at. Out of the two, I had to admit I was taken most back in a positive manner by Dickey’s presence, both on and off stage. He’s got music in his veins, dramatise the blood; rest assured, given the right parts, he will go far. Yes, he tends to play the bumbling oaf trope a bit too stereotypically, but that must’ve been nothing more than a small part to Foley’s charm. Folksy, yet still insanely flawed that he would likely be impossible to trust with a guitar, especially with an audience that doesn’t care. Shawkat, an established acting veteran by now, has struck gold, further broadening her range to accommodate more serious work, and just growing that confidence we could all be striving for. And Sexton, a longtime friend of Hawke’s, his character’s bravado and unique sense of fondness for past events, that would immediately get me to pine for his involvement in more film work down the road. Again, when given the right material.
For what it’s worth, Hawke could easily improve from some apparent missteps preventing Blaze from flourishing into a grander masterpiece of its type. Those who venture out to witness this story told on the big screen, and one should be thankful it will have a few theatrical plays before entering the VOD market, will easily help in more intimate musician biopics being produced. While evidence to that statement may be sorely lacking, those flaws could be overlooked with the right audience. It’s a right old bummer, just how much Hawke takes the high road and can’t quite perceive what’s the better course to his own ardent fans, or that of the artist he’s painting a slightly crude portrait of. He’s a solid director, but we can’t always make the right decisions for our creative work. One may say it’s a distraction from what the end goal would be, tragic as it appears. Another may say the mistakes are a reflection on the subject’s own struggles. Whatever one decides, there’s still plenty to celebrate with what Hawke accomplished, it’s worth seeking out and I’m fully looking forward to what he could do again behind the director’s chair, having learned and grown a little more along the way. (C-)
Blaze opens in Seattle this weekend; SIFF Cinema Uptown in Queen Anne; rated R for language throughout, some sexual content, and drug use; 129 minutes.
