Jim Kohlberg’s film The Music Never Stopped is based on “The Last Hippie”, an essay by Oliver Sacks, who also wrote the titular book that the film Awakenings was based on. It’s easy to lump Kohlberg’s film into that weepy sub-genre of comatose patients sometimes gradually, other times suddenly rediscovering the endless days that passed them by. The wrenching struggles of Gabriel Sawyer (the perpetually young Lou Taylor Pucci), whose memories were following the removal of a massive benign tumor, are no different, and Kohlberg offers no stylistic flourishes to individualize his film. What the director does well, though, is keep the camera trained on his performers, in particular Gabriel’s estranged father, Henry, played by J.K. Simmons in a rare leading role. Surrounded by a strong cast including Julia Ormond and Cara Seymour, Simmons and Pucci easily overcome the genre’s more maudlin hurdles and turn in memorable performances in an otherwise ordinary film.
Seymour plays Helen, Henry’s wife and Gabriel’s doting mother, who upon seeing her son for the first time in twenty years immediately offers support and affection while Henry is sore with discontent. Gabriel, who walked out decades ago, is largely unresponsive and incoherent and Henry quickly loses patience but still makes the necessary visits and watches his flesh and blood act a total stranger. The Music Never Stopped is peppered with key flashbacks that expand on the rift that divides Henry and Gabriel, once united by Henry’s love for the music of his youth, the Count Basies and Bing Crosbys of yesteryear. Gabriel, who came of age in the powder keg 60s, is moved by musicians worlds removed from the giants of the 40s and 50s.
In a wonderful screenwriting stroke, Gabriel offers a key to his potential recovery when he hears the "La Marseillaise” intro to The Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love”. Pucci, whose odd expressiveness was put to great use in Thumbsucker and the underrated Carriers, is pretty affecting here, with a scruffy beard and big, frequently clueless eyes. His reaction to “Love” is a moment that will be seen time and time again – his eyes flicker, and his face contortion almost as if he doesn’t have enough muscles to show the sheer depth of what he’s feeling. It’s a groundswell, levee-breaking moment – and for Dianne Daley (Julia Ormond), it’s a way into Gabriel’s fragmented mind, enfeebled by a brain that is no longer able to form new memories.
Daley quickly discovers what drives Gabriel – the records of his youth act as a catalyst to prompt the otherwise painfully quiet man into motor mouth recollections. His memory of the performers and the meanings he drew from their songs is perfectly preserved and as the soundtrack swells with Dylan, Buffalo Springfield, and especially The Grateful Dead, it’s hard not to be moved by the joy that even the desolation of his memory couldn’t take away from Gabriel. Henry is at first confused by his son’s reaction and as if we see their relationship and its fallout played out in flashbacks, we understand why. Simmons handles Henry’s transformation extremely well – he’s hardly been an over-the-top actor, excepting of course the cartoonish role of J. Jonah Jameson in the Spiderman films. In the role of Henry, Simmons finds the exact necessary mixture of awkwardness and tenderness that comes to a head when he’s able to take his son to the one place Gabriel has always dreamt of being. The love of music will eventually unite father and son, but it’s the journey that’s the destination, as Gabriel says of The Grateful Dead’s “Truckin’”. The Music Never Stopped is one such journey, and with a strong cast and a memorable soundtrack, you would be remiss not to give it a go.
DVD Bonus Features
A director’s commentary is included, as well as 15 minutes of interview time with Simmons and Pucci and especially interesting, 15 minutes with Sacks, who expounds on the true story behind the film and the harsh reality that the film necessarily had to adapt for the screen.
"The Music Never Stopped" is on sale August 2, 2011 and is rated PG. Drama. Directed by Jim Kohlberg. Written by Gwyn Lurie & Gary Marks (screenplay), Oliver Sacks (essay "The Last Hippie"). Starring Cara Seymour, JK Simmons, Lou Pucci, Mia Maestro.
