Music docs create buzz at Sundance – ‘Jessica James’ smart, funny

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LOS ANGELES, Jan 21, (RTRS): From “Once” to “20 Feet From Stardom,” “Searching for Sugar Man,” and “Whiplash,” Sundance has long been a key launchpad for music features and docs, and this year’s edition is primed with a slew of music-infused entries, from documentaries to features.

Even though Lucy Walker’s follow-up to “The Buena Vista Social Club” was forced to withdraw from the program at the start of the fest, one Sundance music doc managed to make ripples before films had even started screening, as Amir Bar-Lev’s four-hour Grateful Dead documentary “Long Strange Trip” was picked up for distribution by Amazon. Singers Adam Levine and Mary J. Blige will both be in town as castmembers for “Fun Mom Dinner” and “Mudbound,” respectively, and L.A.’s electronic music wizard Flying Lotus makes his directorial debut with “Kuso,” in Sundance’s Midnight section.

Documentaries touch on everything from early rock icon Link Wray (“Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World”) to Japanese pop fandom (“Tokyo Idols”), and the Jack Black-starring feature “The Polka King” details the stranger-than-fiction saga of polka superstar-conman Jan Lewan.

From executive producer Pharrell Williams and Sundance veteran director Michael Larnell comes the dramatic competition entry “Roxanne Roxanne,” which tackles the life of rapper Lolita “Roxanne” Shante Gooden, whose appearance in the song “Roxanne’s Revenge” in 1984 helped spark one of hip-hop’s earliest, most legendary battles. Larnell’s film depicts the fateful performance and the “Roxanne Wars” that followed, while also delving into the teenage rapper’s difficult upbringing in the Queensbridge housing project, and her career afterward.

Tribulations

“She first started rapping when she was 10 years old, and there were a number of trials and tribulations that she dealt with before she became Roxanne at age 14,” says Larnell, who spent significant time with the real Shante to prepare the film.

In addition to supporting parts for Mahershala Ali and Nia Long, “Roxanne Roxanne” features screen newcomer Chante Adams in the title role, and Larnell recalls the difficulty of finding the right actor.

“We definitely wanted to go with someone new, and we didn’t really find (Adams) until maybe two weeks before shooting,” he says. “So that was kinda stressful, that was pushing it… But she had something. And once I started working with her I could tell that she was the real deal. Because it’s hard to do hip-hop as an actor, to actually be able to rap, have the mannerisms, the attitude, be able to perform onstage, but then offstage be able to be vulnerable. It’s a serious challenge.”

Also in dramatic competition, Zoe Lister-Jones used music as a window into her directorial debut, “Band Aid,” for which she also serves as writer and star. The film sees her character and her husband (Adam Pally) look to salvage their fracturing relationship by forming a garage band, and transforming their fights into songs. (Fred Armisen, who plays the couple’s oddball next-door neighbor, completes the trio on drums.)

“I was really interested in the intersection of two ideas,” Lister-Jones says. “First, exploring the ways in which a couple fights; and then exploring that through music.”

Lister-Jones — who sang in a band with several of her mother’s graduate students while still in high school — had written music for a film before, collaborating with Kyle Forester for songs in 2009’s “Breaking Upwards.” For “Band Aid,” Lister-Jones composed lyrics as she wrote the script, then brought them to Forester to turn them into fully-fledged tunes.

Performed

Lister-Jones, Pally, and Armisen performed the music live on set for the film, the director says, “because it always bugs me when I watch films that have a musical element when I can tell they’re being performed with playback. It always lacks that raw authenticity that I wanted to preserve in ‘Band Aid.’ It was also a great test (of the songs), because our crew members had to listen to them a lot.”

The Rolling Stones’ historic free concert in Havana, Cuba was the subject of a documentary that played Toronto last fall, but the group was beaten to the punch by electronic music outfit Major Lazer, who became the first major US act to play the island nation since the easing of diplomatic tensions. That concert is the subject of documentary premiere “Give Me Future” from director Austin Peters.

Though the group’s performance is the main event in the film, Peters wanted to capture a bit of Cuba’s youth culture along the way. “I knew I wanted it to be about the Cuba that you don’t usually see on the news,” he says. “It seemed like an opportunity to see what it feels like to be a kid in Havana, and highlight some of these people.”

Some people are born to be movie stars, and “The Incredible Jessica James” successfully makes that case for leading lady Jessica Williams. Best known as a former correspondent for “The Daily Show,” the assertive actress commands every frame of a vehicle that feels built to transport her to even bigger and better things to come. It’s the sort of ingratiating crowdpleaser that would’ve sparked a modest bidding war at past Sundance festivals. But even in a less frenzied atmosphere, the film (which serves as this year’s closing night selection, yet screened for press on day one) should be able to land a distributor savvy enough to maximize its commercial appeal.

It almost feels like a throwback to see a breakout star headline a modest relationship comedy for the indie film crowd at a time when many of Williams’ peers are making their mark on the more expansive canvas of television. Any contemporary film about a young woman navigating life in a big city is going to draw comparisons to Lena Dunham’s “Girls” and Issa Rae’s “Insecure,” and there are even nods, intentional or not, to Donald Glover’s “Atlanta” and Aziz Ansari’s “Master of None” in the casting of co-stars Lakeith Stanfield and Noel Wells.

But instead of screwing with or straight-up demolishing conventions in the style of any of those series, writer-director Jim Strouse (“Grace Is Gone,” “The Winning Season”) places Williams at the center of a thoroughly conventional indie narrative — trusting his star’s sensibility to freshen up otherwise stale scenarios.

Fortunately, Williams delivers on every count. Smart, funny, and beautiful, she’s a force of nature who carries herself with more than just confidence; she’s got a fully justified swagger. As she tells smitten suitor Boone (Chris O’Dowd) at one point: “Of course you. Everybody does. I’m freaking dope.” That Williams sells that line without even a threat of losing the audience’s trust is a measure of how far she can go as an actress.

Of course there’s more to “Jessica James” than just Jessica Williams being freaking dope. But not that much. Williams’ eponymous heroine is a frustrated 25-year-old playwright, who lives in “deep Bushwick” and indulges her love of theater by helping public school kids write and stage scenes for a nonprofit. She’s also struggling to get over a bad breakup with her boyfriend of two years (Stanfield), when her best friend (Wells) sets up a blind date with app designer Boone.

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