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Singer/songwriter Tim Buckley may not have been one of the biggest artists of the ‘60s and ‘70s, but his short yet prolific career—together with that of his son, Jeff—makes for a fascinating story. But while director Daniel Algrant’s Greetings from Tim Buckley touches on the lives of both musicians, it tells audiences as little of the story as possible.
Penn Badgley stars as a young Jeff Buckley, who’s little more than a floundering California musician in 1991, when he receives a call asking him to attend a tribute concert for his legendary father, Tim.
Skeptical but curious, Jeff travels to New York for the concert. And as various artists eagerly prepare for the event, he’s forced to confront the feelings he has for the father he never really knew.
When I was in school, my teachers were constantly stressing the importance of showing instead of telling in writing—and the team involved in writing the script for Greetings from Tim Buckley obviously took that advice very seriously. The film tells very little. It offers no information about Jeff’s life leading up to the 1991 concert, and it offers very little about his father’s life—apart from the occasional flashback. So if you don’t know much about the artists, you’ll probably end up consulting Wikipedia for the information that the movie fails to provide.
You might expect, then, for the film to go in-depth into the events that took place in the days leading up to the concert—and the concert itself. You might expect an exploration of Jeff’s feelings as he rehearses his father’s songs. But you won’t really get much of that, either. Instead, you’ll get a brief and rather uninteresting look at a budding romance between Jeff and a girl who’s working at the concert (played by Imogen Poots)—along with a whole lot of shots of Jeff wandering aimlessly, looking pensive and moody. It’s so moody, in fact, that you might wonder why Robert Pattinson wasn’t cast in the lead role (perhaps he just can’t sing).
In the end, Greetings from Tim Buckley offers just a hint of a story—and it’s a shame, too, since both Tim and Jeff seem to be fascinating characters. But, combined with the abundance of melancholy music, the lack of action makes for a slow and sleepy film. Granted, it does have some shining moments. When Badgley stops moping long enough to get behind the microphone, you’ll take a break from your fidgeting to take notice of his haunting musical performance. The rest of the movie, however, could have used a little more storytelling.
