Almost Famous is the kind of movie you really have to try to dislike. It's so willing to win you over, it works overtime, straining to wring every warm-hearted laugh it can and pausing to resolve all possible conflicts before it finally remands you to the still-photo-heavy end credits. Did I see through the movie? Yes. Did I like it anyway? Hell, yes.

If you've seen Jerry Maguire (and odds are, you have), you're familiar with writer/director Cameron Crowe's technique for wrangling emotion from his audience. He presents us with likable supporting characters and fleshed-out leads and then assaults us with laughs. By the time the serious moments come, they're not as good. They're a little hokey. ("You had me at hello"? Come on!)

But you have to take the whole package for what it's worth, and when you come out, you're riding this feel-good wave of emotion. That Crowe used intelligent dialogue and familiar characters to produce the response is the more admirable.

Almost Famous is Crowe's personal magnum opus, an autobiographical and sentimental retelling of his early days as a teenage correspondent for Rolling Stone. His surrogate self, played admirably (until he's called upon to shout dramatically) by Patrick Fugit, has been isolated from his peers due to a two-year age gap and a seemingly overbearing mother (Frances McDormand).

McDormand's character inherits a one-note tradition of anti-rock caricatures, like the parents in Detroit Rock City, who are called upon to decry "the devil's music" and forbid their children from taking part in it. Crowe and McDormand, though, take the archetype to new, humanizing heights - she's a college professor and a dangerous cross between over-protective and New Age. When she dismisses Simon and Garfunkel and their ilk, she has understandable reasons for doing so.

Nonetheless, the oldest child moves away, leaving young Fugit her collection of records, and he loses himself in their idealism and promise of worldly pleasures. By the time he meets Creem magnate Lester Bangs (played perfectly by Philip Seymour Hoffman), he's turned his school newspaper ambitions toward the music world, combining knowledge and cliché and attracting the attentions of Rolling Stone.

This is all setup for the bulk of the film, which chronicles Fugit's awakening on the road with fictional freedom-rock band Stillwater, a group of Midwest guys on the cusp of stardom. Crowe spends the requisite amount of time dwelling on the band's escalating tensions with the unintended front man/guitarist (Billy Crudup) becoming the star of the group at the expense of the singer (Jason Lee, a delight, as always) and other band members.

It's the episodes with the groupies - excuse me, Band Aides - that prove most rewarding. Fugit's mentor and love interest is a girl named Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), who follows the band for philosophical reasons that all seem to end in cheap sex. She's involved in something a little more serious with Crudup, but typically, he's not exactly a step away from dumping his at-home girlfriend.

Crowe gives us plenty of gleeful, memorable moments in Almost Famous. The group sing-along of "Tiny Dancer" on the tour bus. Crudup partying with the commonfolk of Topeka and dropping acid. The sexual assault from fellow groupies Anna Paquin and Fairuza Balk. Every single line of Hoffman's glorious comedic dialogue. The dramatic climax aboard the charter plane. I could spend the entire review listing moments I enjoyed in this movie.

It's definitely worth seeing for anyone who misses the heartfelt days of rock and the fun and debauchery of their teenage years. For people who admire a well-constructed and well-contained personal epic with a little comedy, drama and romance.

Almost Famous isn't deep exactly - when the kid panics about his lack of an interview with Crudup, you see the solution a good act or two before he does - but it sums up a philosophy and an era and manages to be wildly entertaining at the same time, without being the least bit preachy. If not for that interminable last reel or so, I wouldn't hesitate to slap the film with a five-star rating.



Recommended: Yes