Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Grant Gee
Starring: Anders Danielsen Lie, Bill Pullman, Laurie Metcalf, Barry Ward, Valene Kane, Katie McGrath
As a musician, the jazz pianist Bill Evans exuded calm and control. Away from the piano however, his life was filled with turmoil and tragedy. Like many jazz musicians he succumbed to heroin addiction, leading him to the grave before his time at the age of 51 when he had so much more to give. His devotion to his art made him a difficult man to be around, and those who loved him paid a high price, his long time lover Ellaine Schultz famously paying the ultimate price. Like many artists, Evans went through periods of self-doubt, questioning whether it was worth continuing.
It is one such period that forms the focus of director Grant Gee's Everybody Digs Bill Evans. Adapted by screenwriter Mark O'Halloran from Owen Martell's novel 'Intermission', the title ironically alludes to better times, taking its name from the 1959 album that put Evans on the map after breaking out from the band of Miles Davis.
The film opens in the summer of 1961 with Evans (Anders Danielsen Lie) and his trio in the midst of their iconic performance at New York's Village Vanguard, recordings of which would later be released as the albums 'Sunday Night at the Village Vanguard' and 'Waltz for Debby'. Gee has a history of adding images to music, and his direction here sucks us in, leaving the viewer in no doubt that we are watching a musician at their peak. It will be a long time before we hear Evans play again though, as just a couple of weeks after the Vanguard gig he loses his bassist Scott LaFaro to a fatal car crash.
Evans immediately quits playing and convinces himself that LaFaro is so irreplaceable that there is no point forming a new trio. His brother Harry (Barry Ward) invites Evans to stay with his wife Pat (Katie McGrath) and their daughter Debby, for whom Evans composed his famous waltz. But Evans sinks back into heroin addiction, sneaking out at night to get his fix and falling asleep in Harlem jazz clubs. Harry decides the best course of action is to get his brother out of New York, and so he packs him off to stay with their parents, Harry (Bill Pullman) and Mary (Laurie Metcalf), at their home in Florida.
The bulk of the narrative is centred on Evans' time with his parents, and it is a striking reminder of how few movies explore relationships between adult children and their parents. No matter how old you get, when you stay under your parents' roof you revert to childhood in some form, because that's how you will always be viewed in their eyes. This is certainly the case with Evans. While his father seems blissfully ignorant, his mother is clearly aware that his "sickness" is caused by addiction, but rather than shaming her son she does everything she can to get him through cold turkey. Metcalf's face is heartbreaking as Mary watches her boy convulse and sweat in his sleep, vomiting his innards up the following morning. She is the only person in Evans' world who seems to care more about Bill the man than Bill Evans the musician.
More fascinating however is Evans' relationship with his father. Here are two men incapable of expressing their feelings verbally. Evans has found a way to let it all out through his music, but his father keeps everything inside, a mixture of pride and perhaps resentment towards his boy eating away at him like a cancer he refuses to have diagnosed. The polar opposite of the taciturn Evans, Harry Snr talks a lot and says very little. It is only after a night of boozing in a local bar where he shows off his son to the smitten barflies that Harry comes close to opening up, drunkenly clutching his son but unable to say the right words.
The other key relationship touched on here is that between Evans and the doomed Ellaine (Valene Kane). Evans knows that he can't be around her and stay off heroin, but no matter how cold and cruel he is towards her, she can't stay away, to her fatal detriment. There is stark contrast between the genuine love of Evans' mother and the succubus nature of Ellaine's desires, though this portrayal may be a little unfair to the real life Ellaine who didn't get to tell her own side of the sad story.
Like Richard Linklater's recent Lorenz Hart biopic Blue Moon, this is another relatively low budget Irish production. As such it suffers from some unconvincing accent work by the local supporting cast, but this shouldn't detract from the performances. Everyone is putting in good work here as a collection of people dancing around their feelings, fears and desires. Danielsen Lie is given the difficult task of portraying a very quiet central figure, but he disappears into the role, nailing Evans' gaunt look and the mannerisms of a man who seems to always want to be somewhere else. Pullman and Metcalf are a delight as two people who love their son but express it in very different ways. Despite his inconsistent accent, Ward is compelling as the brother who envies but admires Evans' talent.
The limited budget means most of the film plays out in a few rooms, but Gee and production designer Ellen Kirk do a fine job of making sure these interiors tell us something about the people who inhabit them, Evans' sparse New York apartment contrasting with the domestic cosiness of his brother's home. The 16mm photography of Piers McGrail - monochrome in the main 1961 narrative and garishly colourful in flash forwards to Evans' tumultuous '70s - greatly adds to the sense of period, and the black and white portions evoke the great Chet baker documentary Let's Get Lost.
Jazz buffs will likely form the bulk of Everybody Digs Bill Evans' audience, and they will find themselves teased by the many times it seems Evans is about to start tinkling the ivories only to withdraw. When he eventually summons up the will to return to his calling, it is like a battered boxer pulling himself up off a bloodied canvas. Evans may have passed away too early, but at the point this film ends he has plenty more rounds to fight, and he just might be cheered on by a new generation of fans.
Everybody Digs Bill Evans is in UK/ROI cinemas from September 11th.
