![Screen International reviews STONED [ 10/08/2005 ]]( "Screen International reviews STONED [ 10/08/2005 ]")
Screen International reviews STONED [ 10/08/2005 ]
Mike Goodridge in Los Angeles 10 August 2005
Dir: Stephen Woolley. UK. 2005. 102mins.
Veteran UK producer Stephen Woolley makes an accomplished directorial debut with Stoned, an absorbing portrait of Brian Jones, the founding member of The Rolling Stones, and the events surrounding his death on July 2, 1969. Rich in period atmosphere and music, the film possesses the same knowing style and historical intrigue as Scandal and Backbeat, both of which Woolley produced.
Like those titles, Stoned should cause a stir in theatrical markets (it is pencilled in for a November 11 release in the UK), especially given the publicity that will be generated by its rock legend subject, the salacious alleged murder at its heart and the enduring popularity of the Stones themselves who have a new CD and tour which kicks off later this month.
Playing at a slew of film festivals this season – it enjoys a world premiere at Edinburgh, followed by Toronto, San Sebastian, Rio De Janeiro, Dinard and Stockholm – Stoned will pick up attention wherever it screens, setting tongues to wagging and journalists to scribbling.
Based on three books published in the 1990s, the film explores the last three months of Jones’ life in which Frank Thorogood, the builder renovating his country pile, developed a close relationship with his new boss and was present the night when he drowned in his swimming pool. Both Thorogood and Jones had been taking large quantities of drugs and alcohol. A verdict of death by misadventure was recorded at the time.
In 1993, on his deathbed, Thorogood allegedly confessed that he murdered Jones. The subsequent books, including one by Jones’ Swedish girlfriend Anna Wohlin, who was also at the house on the fateful night, all asserted that the death was not accidental.
Playing Thorogood and proving again that he is one of the UK’s most compelling actors is Paddy Considine, this time sporting a thick London accent. A veteran of World War II, Thorogood was a fairly straight fellow who lived a dreary life in post-war suburbia.
When his best friend, the slick, dubious Stones manager Tom Keylock (Morrissey) enlists him to supervise some home improvements at Cotchford Farm, the East Sussex house where Jones (Gregory) lives, Thorogood is reluctant to take on the job and immediately resistant to the neuroses and apparent helplessness of the rock star.
Slowly, however, he becomes intoxicated by Jones’ charisma, sexual magnetism and louche lifestyle. Despite continuous mockery and taunts from Jones and his entourage, Thorogood proves a dependable housekeeper, cook and friend, and even becomes sexually enamoured of his boss.
But Jones, who had long since stopped working with the band and was burning through money fed him by the Stones organisation with increasing resistance, never treats his builder as anything more than a glorified servant.
Jones himself is cursed by a lack of work ethic and self-discipline, some extreme sexual peccadillos and an increasing propensity to self-destruction. Although the unquestioned guiding hand behind the creation and musical direction of the Stones, he was fired from the band shortly before his death and had lost the love of his life Anita Pallenberg (Mazur) to Keith Richards (Whishaw).
The film is most beguiling as a portrait, never more relevant than in today’s celebrity-obsessed popular culture, of that mysterious star quality possessed by figures like Jones and the allure it holds for the people around them. The glamour, affluence and sexual shenanigans of the famous are in this case dangerously bewitching to the common man.
The chief shortcoming with the film lies in its narrative structure. As scripted by Robert Wade and Neil Purvis, Stoned attempts to tell the history (in flashback) of Jones and the band’s rise to fame, in parallel with the Jones/Thorogood story.
While the Jones/Stones background gives context to the Jones character, it distracts from the Jones/Thorogood story which in itself is more dramatic. Likewise the film’s point of view veers between Jones and Thorogood, who is arguably – ironically - a more fascinating character.
Woolley displays a second-nature grasp of his camera and his actors and pulls off some memorable scenes, notably one in which Wohlin (Novotny) is goaded by Jones to seduce Thorogood as well as the tense climactic build-up to the drowning.
Leo Gregory, a young English actor with upcoming credits including Green Street Hooligans and Tristan And Isolde, is generally successful at creating a seductive character in the amoral Jones, a former public school boy who commanded the respect of his musical peers like Hendrix and Lennon before his death at the age of 27.
The director did not enlist the participation of the surviving Stones in the production, and ensures that Richards and Mick Jagger are secondary characters with little part to play in the downward spiral of Jones’ life.
Like with The Beatles in Backbeat, there is no Stones music on the soundtrack; instead the film effectively employs the blues standards which were covered by the Stones in Jones’ time as well as other classics of the period like White Rabbit, Lazy Sunday Afternoon and Time Is On My Side.
