When you pay eight quid for a film called “Sex & drugs & rock & roll” it’s not unreasonable to expect that the screen time will be equally divided between all three. This biopic of Ian Dury has a fair bit of d
rug taking, mostly of dope and speed; rather a lot of rock and roll though perhaps with a tad more jazz funk influence than decent people prefer and very little sex. I tried to get a partial refund on that basis but the man at the ticket desk was not very cooperative.
Before getting onto the film itself let’s take a detour around Ray Winstone. There seems to be a law that he has to appear in every British film where the action takes place within a fifty mile radius of London. The trailers included something coming out soon in which he plays a tormented, aggressive, complex Cockney villain. In this film he was Dury’s tormented yet complex father. You can just imagine the casting meetings.
We’re looking for a fifty something actor to play a tormented yet complex furniture maker in Regency London.
Ray Winstone. It’s the law.
This part calls for someone to be a complex, aggressive yet tormented British chieftain in Londinium.
Ray Winstone. It’s the law.
Can anyone suggest who we can get for the role of a complex, aggressive tormented factory owner in Victorian Southend….
Ian Dury has, for no reason that I can discern, emerged as some sort of British national treasure. He made one very good album thirty years ago, a couple of duff ones and performed in some unmemorable films. That’s pretty thin material for a two hour film but two things make it well worth seeing even if you are not much of a fan of the man’s work. The first is the animated sequences which open the film and are used to illustrate a couple of songs. Then Andy Serkis’ performance is probably the best piece of acting you’ll see in 2010. He is barely off the screen for the whole film and allows Dury’s character to transform him. For his family’s sake we have to hope that he was able to stop being Dury when he went home in the evenings.
The kindest thing you can say about Dury is that he could not have been easy to live with. Given that the film was made with the cooperation of his family and former band mates we have to assume that it’s a pretty fair likeness of someone who may have had a flair for words but would be grating after ten minutes even if you loved him dearly. So domestic rows were dealt with by responding in rhyming couplets and everything in the lives of those around him was required to revolve around his physical and emotional needs with a smart Alec put down being the only thanks expressed. Despite no longer being in the first flush of youth when he became commercially successful he let it go to his head in a way that Pete Doherty might have found a bit extreme. In Pete Doherty’s favour is the fact that he doesn’t encourage kids to bunk off school and allow them to try his mates’ drugs.
If the film tries to make any claim that Dury was anything other than an utterly egocentric rhymester it is towards the end when he emerges as an advocate for the rights of the disabled. It’s unconvincing. He generated a bit of controversy with the musically weak track Spasticus Autisticus and that was pretty much it. For those of us unfamiliar with his work it’s debt to the film Spartacus came as a revelation but does not improve the song.
At the end of the film Dury addresses the audience and says that there is no moral in the story and he’s right. It’s a portrait of an artist with a slender musical legacy who was obnoxious to everyone who loved him. Serkis’ performance makes it essential viewing.
Liam redux 
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