Creation Stories
SKYTruth is inconvenient to Alan McGee. He said so in his recent interview with The Observer. Creation Stories, the biopic on the influential music maverick, is steeped in fiction, and not the type that entertains or provokes a new reaction to an old story. Much of that is political decision-making, the hot button trends of the past now guiding the future, and inevitably, the style and course of this movie from director Nick Moran. Drug-fuelled explorations into the true stories often struggle with imagery and contrast. Creation Stories is no exception, unfortunately. Erratic stories do not need to be told with inconsistent narrators, but that seems to be the popular tone to take with the U.K. music scene.
Ewen Bremner is given another vehicle and opportunity to out the mania and drugged-up rampages he was always clamouring for with Trainspotting and its follow-up, T2 Trainspotting. His performance is good, the drug vacuum he attempts to bring to the big screen is rich with material, but most of it appears to be left on the cutting room floor. He is the man holding this project together, and appearances from Irvine Welsh, Jason Isaacs and Steven Berkoff provide the star power necessary to support smaller creatives looking to make their debut foray through the big-screen promises. All well and good, but the editing leaves much to be desired. It is unfocused, trying out the punk attitudes that McGee was blessed with in his early years. Rather than a rebellion against the system, this style and direction merely prove that there is a set standard for reasons of quality control. It is not stomping down the visionaries. It is acting as quality control.
Early moments in the early days of McGee’s life are showing the typical outsider. He is not popular, nor will he ever be, until he hits it big with the bands that formed the future. A hard-knock family life, an unlikely friendship and all the woes that shape the man he turned into are present. It tackles solid and emotional moments with all the style and grace of a panicked creative looking to cram their dream and vision into a tightly packaged format. To do this, the trade-offs for the few moments of genuine inspiration are to follow the formula of the music biopic, which is tired and stagnant. McGee jamming out to the bands that shaped his early life on the telly, listening to David Bowie every chance he gets and firing his way into the punk-rock scene. They will be firm friends with those out there already deep into the waters of music biopics.
“Most of this happened...” and with that intro, one fell swoop, Creation Stories is given unlimited freedom. Not used with the creativity F for Fake did decades ago, and instead of narrative flair and creative character arcs, Creation Stories limps along as it attempts to make sense of an indefinably strong era for British music. Britpop and the culture immediately before it are influential and inspiring, but that is not the case for Creation Stories. Moran grabs at Welsh’s scriptwriting charms, clawing its way into that style but failing to do anything phenomenal with it. Welsh and Bremner collaborating will always offer up moments of brilliance, but here, they fail to set the world ablaze as successfully as the bands they profile did.