Set during the lead-up to Tim Buckley's tribute concert held at St Ann's Church, Brooklyn, in 1991, Daniel Algrant's Greetings From Tim Buckley sees Jeff Buckley (Gossip Girl's lonely boy Penn Badgley) trying to grapple with the resentment he felt towards his estranged father. With intermittent flashbacks portraying Tim gallivanting about on tour, emotionally and physically absent from his wife and son, the daddy issues angle comes across as more trite than heartstring-pulling.
Badgley is a surprisingly convincing Jeff, particularly when he's singing. It's a strange thing to hear something so akin to Jeff's recognisable, high-pitched wailing and soulful melismas and trills coming out of Badgley's mouth. The supporting actress/lead female role, played by Imogen Poots, is essentially a prop — a lens through which we discover the many facets of Jeff: tortured, brooding, playful, cocky, eccentric, spontaneous, reckless. Nevertheless, the charismatic Poots gives the character colour and warmth, which makes that aspect of the storyline bearable.
With a gorgeous soundtrack filled with Tim's songs, both original recordings and others' renditions, the film's strongest scenes centre around the music itself. As we finally see the concert come together, Jeff paying his respects through performing his father's music (a moving solo acoustic version of Once I Was in particular), therein lies the emotion that was missing throughout the majority of the film.
In cinemas Thursday 1 August.
