6/10
I enjoyed this film a lot more than I expected - for the first hour. Then it lost me somewhat. Mostly avoiding the festival itself (for obvious logistical reasons), the film concentrates on the back story of how Woodstock came to be in a small town called White Lake, based in a ma and pa motel. Eliot Tiber is a young man who has devoted a lot of his young life to supporting his parents' failing enterprise, not helped by his mother's belligerent attitude to guests. But when he sees the opportunity to find a home for a planned festival which has lost its location, he seizes it, and in the process meets lots of beautiful people. The organisation and setup of the festival are fun, with lots of different and appealing characters, but once the weekend starts and we follow Eliot's journey of enlightenment, the interest factor drops considerably. Two standout performances are Imelda Staunton as Eliot's obsessive mother, and Liev Schreiber as the transvestite ex-Special Ops guy.
