Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
The story of Elliot Tiber and his family, who inadvertently played a pivotal role in making the famed Woodstock Music and Arts Festival into the happening that it was. When Elliot hears that a neighboring town has pulled the permit on a hippie music festival, he calls the producers thinking he could drum up some much-needed business for his parents' run-down motel. Three weeks later, half a million people are on their way to his neighbor’s farm in White Lake, New York, and Elliot finds himself swept up in a generation-defining experience that would change his life–and American culture–forever.
Taking Woodstock offers a charming, offbeat angle on the iconic festival by focusing on the peripheral organizer rather than the musicians, giving it a modest novelty boost. Ang Lee's direction keeps the tone light and humanistic, and the ensemble cast (including Demetri Martin and Henry Goodman) delivers competent, warm performances. Cinematography captures the era pleasantly without being visually ambitious. The plot meanders pleasantly but lacks dramatic propulsion, and the ending deflates rather than lands with meaningful resonance, feeling anticlimactic for such a culturally momentous backdrop. A likable but unexceptional film that sits comfortably in the middle tier.