A few years ago there was a Jimi Hendrix biopic titled Jimi: All Is By My Side, which was pretty terrible, with a huge part of the problem being the failure to secure rights to any of his music. Just take that as basic fact. If the estate shoots down your request for the artist’s music, just pack it in already. Well, the same standard goes for Stardust, a David Bowie film that fans of the late rocker are probably going to want to avoid.
Johnny Flynn stars as a young David Bowie…in a film that boasts it’s “David before Bowie.” Ugh. So we get to see the creation of his “Ziggy Stardust” persona, and the music that would make up his Hall of Fame career. You just won’t hear any of that shit.
First of all, Flynn looks zero percent like Bowie. Normally that would be okay, it happens all of the time that a star doesn’t look like the person they are portraying, but combined with the other shortcomings, such as music biopic cliches (the rock industry doesn’t GET him!!) and lack of Bowie music, it’s just too much. Also in the cast are Marc Maron, Jena Malone, and Aaron Poole.
Interestingly, it’s directed by Gabriel Range, who courted controversy with his fictional George W. Bush assassination film The Death of a President.
Stardust opens in theaters and VOD on November 25th.
SYNOPSIS: David Bowie is one of the most seminal legends in music history; but who was the man behind the many faces? In 1971, a 24-year-old fledgling David Bowie (Johnny Flynn) is sent to America to promote his newest record, The Man Who Sold the World. Leaving behind his pregnant wife Angie (Jena Malone), Bowie and his band embark on a makeshift coast-to-coast promotional tour with struggling Mercury Records publicist Rob Oberman (Marc Maron).
