Kurt Cobain. Janis Joplin. Jimi Hendrix. Jim Morrison. Just a select few of the famous musicians who’ve joined The 27 Club. It’s an elusive league, but the only requirement for membership is to die at the age of twenty-seven. Rock stars only, of course.
It’s a club that many musicians often dream of joining, or at least joke about (somehow, this is considered a coveted position). Of course, no one would really commit suicide just because of a number, would they? That in itself is a fascinating mindset to explore, but that’s not what The 27 Club focuses on. The film’s protagonist is the band member left behind, the one who doesn’t become a legendary martyr of rock n’ roll. For the sake of analogy and analogy alone, think of it as the Dave Grohl story immediately following Cobain’s death.
The film opens with Elliot (Joe Anderson) identifying his best friend and bandmate Tom (James Forgey) in a morgue. The two of them make up the popular duo Finn, a band that you’d think has only one song, judging by its repeated use throughout the film at key moments and flashback montages. It’s a pretty terrible song, but it fits perfectly with the film’s hopelessly emo characters and the MTV-level popularity they’ve gained. If I was a one hit wonder with that song, I’d kill myself too.
Tom’s suicide leaves Elliot in dazed mourning. He decides to drive from LA to Tom's funeral in New York, visiting their home town in Missouri along the way. Accompanying him on the trip is an unnamed dork (David Emrich) he meets at a grocery store and offers $10,000 to drive, identified only as Three Words because of his unusual speech pattern. Three Words speaks only three-word sentences, which could be an annoying gimmick but is handled naturally by the childlike naivete of Emrich's performance. As Elliot and Three Words trek through the belly of America, Elliot’s flashbacks tell us Finn's backstory—how Tom and Elliot escape an oppressive town together to pursue their dream.
An indie road trip movie with a shattered rock star and a quirky character sounds like an unbearable film, and in some ways The 27 Club does emit an annoyingly polished familiarity—its solution too easily given by the patented combination of the wise wino and the cathartic church choir—but the film is a vehicle for its star Joe Anderson, who turns in a great performance filled and coated with quiet anger, unspoken heartbreak and sympathetic stares.
Anderson has done a few music related projects; among them playing Joy Division bassist Peter Hook in Control and starring in Across the Universe. Clearly, he has some vested interest in the music world (he also co-wrote the one Finn song with co-star Forgey), but Anderson’s performance stands tall on its own. If nothing else, The 27 Club serves as proof that he is a young talent to be very closely watched.
