"Absolute Beginners" is Julien Temple's musical ode to tempestuous 1950's British teenage life, love and anarchy. Ray Davies stars as Dad in this musical sequence depicting Colin's crazy family.
If you like him in this, you should definitely check out the Kinks' "Come Dancing" from a couple of years earlier. A toe-tapping tune that also had a great video.
Is this the best acting in a musical Ray Davies ever did? It's got to be close. This is just a wonderful bit of musical theater acting by all involved.
This is Ray Davies back in the old vaudevillian form that was one of the many things that made the Kinks one of the greatest bands of all time. The cinema is stunning, too. Thanks for posting!
Superb Film Saw This Film when It Came out in 1986, Have it on DVD & Occasionally what It, Every time I Watch it I See Something I Didn't Notice Before :) Every Scene Has it's Own Merits :) Jon Buck
I finally got this soundtrack on vinyl. Guess which is my favorite song to listen to when my husband's out?? Yeah, a perfect song if you married a man from Italy - " And the fellow who walks away, lives to battle another day. I've really got no appetite for a fight, not tonight." Davies could hang with Porter or Gershwin any time..
AB is not so much a film as a string of loosely related videos. Sir Ray's wistful ditty is my favorite, together with the spectacular opening track through Soho at night- which, maybe deliberately, is set in 1958, the year of Orson Welles's 'Touch of Evil', whose opening is similar. The film suffers from trying to pack too much in, as if Temple was afraid he'd never get another shot at the big time (and he barely did). But that is a fault on the right side. The utter insipidity of the two young leads is something else. There was a lot of 'The British Are Coming' blather at the time about a filmic renaissance, and when AB fell short it was too readily memory-holed as an embarrassment. Time to dig it up. There's nothing as ambitious in UK 2023.
The source material didn't have a strong narrative, which is a large part of why the film hasn't either. I saw this when it was released, and didn't think much of it at the time, other than the last 10-15 minutes. But from the vantage point of the 2020s, it's starting to look like a classic!
@mbrady2329 , Are you claiming the novel isn't as highly esteemed as it long has been or that just as a source for a compelling cinematic story narrative, it's lacking?
