JIMI: All Is by My Side

When dealing with such an iconic figure such as Jimi Hendrix, sometimes the hardest thing about capturing the essence of a character, the perspectives of a legend, and the workings of a man are the most difficult points to show on screen. Jimi Hendrix is a name that pretty well everyone knows, and a name that many will continue to remember for many years to come. So how does one humanize, arguably, the greatest guitar player who ever lived?

The film itself is an exercise in the practice of subtly and minute brilliance. All Is By My Side is a rustic and antique look at the life of a man; Johnny Allen Hendrix, a man who served the US army and was honourably discharged; Jimmy James, the backing guitarist for the Isley Brother's, Little Richard and Curtis Knight; finally Jimi Hendrix–the experience.

Undoubtedly, first time director, veteran screenwriter and passionate Hendrix fan John Ridley had a difficult time with the production. Relying mostly on passion, Ridley focused on the small instances of Hendrix's career, and navigates through the film with nuanced characters and fragmented events in Hendrix's career.

Its admirable how Ridley, through a slew of obstacles, was still able to delve deep into the world of Hendrix through extensive research. Unable to attain the musical rights from the Hendrix estate, Ridley opted for covers of Hendrix songs and songs Hendrix covered to fill the somewhat hushed void of a musical autobiography. I won't lie in saying that I was quite surprised to see an autobiographical film of one of the loudest and most electric guitarist to be so quiet. The soundtrack is definitely something I will not be rushing to get.

Although Ridley was unable to fill the musical gap of the film, he made up for it visually and in his actors performances. Andrea Benjamin's take on Hendrix will surely be the overlooked performance of the year. Nailing Hendrix's mannerism, voice, passion (or lack there-of) and his nonchalant attitude, Benjamin is spot-on. Not far behind is Imogen Poots and her portrayal of Linda Keith, the woman who was responsible for introducing the world to Hendrix. Poots is an absolute acting force to be reckoned with. Linda's subdue scenes with Hendrix, although somewhat tame and uneventful, give the audience the most auspicious look into the inner workings of the Hendrix psyche.

All Is By My Side will surely be an overlooked film by critics and audiences alike. Substituting thunderous Hendrix stage antics with gorgeous shots of the London landscape, the smokey underground music scene at the time and blurry world of rock and roll, cinematographer Tim Fleming creates an intimate portrayal of a man who was mysterious and misunderstood to others, but to himself as well.

All Is By My Side is a beautiful, quiet and stylistically generous offering to the hardcore Hendrix fan.

Night Film Reviews: 7/10 Stars

I have never read a bio on Jimi so I have no idea what is real, made up, embellished or left out. I have only seen other bio-pics or docs on him. A two hour film of a persons entire life should be able to cut out all the boring bits and leave an interesting, if not realistic version of one's life....too bad this film didn't follow that rule. It had a slow moving pace that few directors can make work. Unlike Jimi's music this film has almost NO energy. Very little tension. The performances are OK and could have been better if the director would have utilized them better. Very little use of the song catalogue. Very little focus on the other band members. Other all, just not worth it.

Jimi Hendrix portrayed by Andre 3000 was a great performance, but with no music. Jimi is an icon and this movie lacked the love of his sound. C'mon maaan!

Man, I don't know what drugs some of these other reviewers are on. One person seems to be under the impression that the movie claims Jimi didn't play guitar before he came to England. WTF? Another person claims the film is racist because it accurately portrays white people helping Jimi move to London and start his own band. Yet another person claims Eric Clapton didn't walk off the stage when Jimi sat in with Cream because Clapton doesn't mention it when he's interviewed, but plenty of others remember it that way, and Clapton isn't going to go out of his way to bring up something that makes him look bad. Which brings us to Ms. Etchingham. You know, every time you watch a documentary about Hendrix there's an interview with a different woman whose only claim to fame in life is that she slept with Jimi, and they all seem to be self-appointed guardians of his legacy, every one of them was the real true love of his life, and none of them have a single negative word to say about him. But Hendrix was a famous womanizer—how he juggled jealous women is part of the focus of the film—and it is well known that he became angry and violent when he drank. So maybe Jimi beat her and maybe he didn't, but if he did I wouldn't really expect Ms. Etchingham to admit it, and if he didn't it doesn't really bother me that much because the episode can be viewed as a metaphor for a darker side of his personality that really did exist and wouldn't have been explored in the film without that scene.

Artistically I thought the film was a triumph and one of the best rock biopics I've seen. Andre Benjamin NAILS Jimi. He deserves an Oscar nomination for his performance. He obviously spent a lot of time listening to audio of Jimi speaking because he captured the rhythm and inflections of Jimi's speech perfectly. And acting-wise Benjamin was excellent, I thought he got inside Jimi's character even more than Jamie Foxx did in Ray. As an actor he was remarkably in the moment and very subtle. And the female leads are with him all the way, especially Imogen Poots as Linda Keith, she's soooo good. The reviewer who said that the "crazy cuts and directing style" gave him a headache would undoubtedly get a cerebral hemorrhage from a Godard film, the editing was artistically innovative and miles ahead of standard Hollywood flicks like Get On Up and Ray.

As for the lack of original Hendrix songs, in the end it didn't bother me much. In a way it might have worked to the film's advantage, because it forced the director to concentrate more on creating a character study based on dialogue and narrative instead of recreating one performance clip after another, as in Get On Up. And anyhow, two-thirds of the movie takes place before Jimi put together the Experience and started writing songs. I did wonder why they didn't use "Hey Joe" since Jimi didn't write it and he was playing it onstage when Chas Chandler saw him for the first time. But overall, I loved the movie and thought it rocked hard.

The theatregoer hoping to get some insight into Jimi Hendrix and London in 1966/67 will leave the theatre disappointed or duped by the film makers.

Before seeing the film I was apprehensive, as I had been told that my character was portrayed in a derogatory and potentially defamatory manner. I had been told that Jimi had beaten me with a telephone in the film and after I had protested that this was not true the film makers had replied that it was true because they had "thoroughly researched" me.

In other words they were saying that they were telling the truth and I was not.

During the opening scenes I found it difficult to comprehend the way the story was unfolding, or what it was depicting. The editing was disjointed and dialogue was layered on top of alternate dialogue, seemingly from a parallel conversation.

The film progressed in a confusing and dull manner but there was one scene that gave me a momentary lift of anticipation. The scene depicts Jimi playing with Cream at the Polytechnic Students' Union and should have set out to depict an absolutely epic event that I had witnessed. (I had been carrying Jimi's guitar).

I hoped that they would do Jimi justice in their interpretation of what happened. Unfortunately, once the music started, my heart sank. What a disappointment. Not only was it insulting to Jimi's legacy, but I would say it was fairly insulting to Eric Clapton as well because the real Eric Clapton would never have been in awe of the unremarkable performance presented to viewers in this film.

The storyline progressed in an awkward and illogical way and was hard to comprehend.

The basis seemed to be that the dimwitted "Jimi" could not make up his mind between the good rock chick (Linda Keith) and the bad rock chick (Kathy Etchingham) who later goes bonkers and takes an overdose. (If I was the actress having to play this lousy part wearing those ugly clothes I may have taken an overdose too.)

The strange fact that jars with this fictional narrative is that, in reality, the unfortunate Linda Keith ended up in rehab at around this time because Keith Richards, of all people, initiated an intervention that probably saved her life. She was hardly in a position to be advising Jimi on how to play the guitar and do his hair.

Fictional characters were introduced that furthered the deluded political, racial and sexist agenda that John Ridley seemed to be pursuing. In particular Michael X was presented as a saintly black political guru whereas in truth he was a violent criminal con man who was executed for a gruesome murder. An "Ida" character is introduced who never existed in real life.

The biggest disappointment of this film was that after expecting at least some kind of depiction of Jimi's humour and creativity and the amusing and creative times that were happening in London, instead we were shown a gloomy and depressing dark tale that pictured Jimi as some sort of moronic mumbling mystic with no ambition.

Instead of showing Jimi touring the UK and Europe, writing and performing the most innovative music of the century we are shown scenes of banal mumblings, fictitious gratuitous violence and fictitious mental breakdowns and overdoses.

My initial anxiety turned to scorn for the thoroughly bad screenplay and direction. I became bored and impatient for the end of the film.

The fictional nature of the film left me feeling that the events I was watching were more akin to a made for DVD movie than a biopic.

I felt that I wasn't watching an interpretation of the real events from the time, but rather a stiff and poorly depicted mashup of trivia from events described in my book, sprinkled over Ridley's racially driven fictional theme.

Even the imaginary domestic violence, mental breakdown and drug use that my character was involved in did not evoke the emotional response I expected, and I found myself feeling just as I have when watching other bad movies, impatient for it to just finish and spare me the indignity of having to watch another tiresome scene with wooden dialogue and disjointed editing.

A short-sighted and somewhat offensive portrayal of Jimi and those around him at the time.

Final verdict: Fictional Movie – 2/10 Biopic purporting to be based in fact – 1/10 (for spelling all the names right)