Latest screening: Taking Woodstock

Some have argued that Taking Woodstock seems a strange film for Ang Lee to take on. I don't prescribe to this view. How a man that has made a period action epic like Crouching Toger Hidden Dragon, a politically-charged 70s-set family saga like The Ice Storm, a western like Ride With The Devil, a ground-breaking same sex love story in Brokeback Mountain and a comic-book superhero movie in Hulk can be said to have a "type" of film that he makes is beyond me. One thing you can't do is pigeon-hole Ang Lee.

That said, it doesn't mean that every film works and here he comes unstuck. Taking Woodstock is not a bad film, indeed, had it not been made by Lee reviews would no doubt be kinder, but it is very much a film of two halves.

The film starts well and the set up is well handled. Here we have a frustratingly quiet town for prpotagonist Elliot, who wants to be a good son to his domineering mother and put-upon father, but longs, silently, to escape. He sees a chance to help his parents get out from under financial problems and free himself in the process when an opportunity comes his way to use a license he has to host a musical festival (which traditionally consists of his playing records on his lawn) to attract an adrift massive music festival to his town.

So far so good and for about an hour things are ticking along nicely. Elliot and the other characters are well set up and believable, with the possible exception of Emile Hirsch who simply doesn't convince the viewer that he has seen real combat - a problem since his character is a disturbed soldier, recently returned from Vietnam.

The early scenes have a wealth of humour, from a town-council meeting that is gently mocking of small town bureaucrats; to the overwhelming cheapness of Elliot's mum (a brilliant Imelda Staunton); to the arrival of cross-dresser Liev Schreiber looking for a security job; and the general escalation of the festival.

Small turns from the likes of Eugene Levy and Jeffrey Dean Morgan provide real characters despite little screen time, but Lee establishes the world with his usual skill and eye for character and observational humour.

Unfortunately he then abandons it all as the film loses its way wallowing in the experiences common to a coming-of-age film and expected in a film set in this era - as Elliot discovers his sexuality, drugs and an independence he hadn't sought. The problem here is that's the end of the story. Threads about towns folk unhappy with millions of teenagers descending on the town, local muscle men looking for a slice of the pie, his mother's secret, selfish hoard, etc are all abandoned and character development goes out the window. Early established characters like Eugene Levy's farmer and Jeffrey Dean Morgan's straight-laced but concerned brother to Hirsch's Billy completely disappear.

If the film were truly giving a sense of his experiences perhaps this could be forgiven, but it doesn't. Lee is too shy - perhaps after the criticism he got in some circles for the graphic imagery of Lust, Caution - to show a lot of the inferred events unfold and others, such as his parents experiencing the effects a hash brownies, are played too briefly purely for the comic effect and to remind us (or maybe Lee) that there are actually others characters in this world.

And then it kind of peters out!

It leaves you wondering why the set-up if its all going to be abandoned down the road. Either you are making a film about Elliot's experiences or a larger canvas, but this appears to start as one and becomes another. And unfortunately the second part, the experiences, are neither terribly original, revelatory or interesting. Watching someone else get high on film is like watching someone play a computer game - if you're not doing it yourself it's lost in translation!

A disappointing film, but one that does offer some entertaining humour in the first hour and a dynamite supporting performance from Staunton that will no doubt be lost in the general inanity of the film. Shame.