David Chase’s Not Fade Away is already getting some very mixed notices, slightly getting buried under the weight of it being the first film from the creator of The Sopranos. It’s a very different beast to Chase’s TV show though, following a group of friends from suburban New Jersey in the 1960s who form a rock band and try to hit it big.
Here’s the synopsis: ‘Not Fade Away, David Chase’s deeply felt love letter to the music of the Sixties, is a film about dreams that come true — and the ones that never do. For Chase, “It’s about anybody who has ever had a dream and about what it takes to actually realize that dream. Rock & roll is at the heart of the movie because for some of the characters, rock music is the gateway to transcendence, but it doesn’t end there.”
‘Traditionally, most rock & roll movies have focused on the agony and ecstasy of “making it” on a grand scale, usually with thousands of fans screaming in the background. As a rule, we witness some band of brothers’ rise and fall, then their crash and burn, and perhaps the eventual resurrection. As one might expect from a man best known as the creator of the groundbreaking television series The Sopranos, Not Fade Away is not your average rock & roll movie. Instead, this is an intimate, powerful, alternately painful and funny drama about coming of age and the sort of indelible memories — musical and otherwise — that end up making us who we are.’
The movie reached the US on Friday, but not UK date is currently set.