Jimi: All Is by My Side

Film Review by Josh Slater-Williams | 24 Oct 2014
Film title: Jimi: All Is by My Side
Director: John Ridley
Starring: André Benjamin, Imogen Poots, Hayley Atwell, Andrew Buckley, Ruth Negga, Adrian Lester, Burn Gorman
Release date: 24 Oct
Certificate: 15

Jimi: All Is by My Side takes an approach that more musician biopics should, that of honing in on one specific period of Jimi Hendrix's life instead of providing a rushed tour from childhood to untimely demise. Since the Hendrix estate denied use of the man's songs, this artistic decision on the part of writer-director John Ridley may have been compelled by legal logistics, but the result allows for a relaxed atmosphere in which André "3000" Benjamin's fine performance as Hendrix can avoid mere mimicry and feel lived-in.

Additionally, the narrow focus on 1966-67 London provokes an interesting framing of the story around two key women in the musician's life: girlfriend Kathy Etchingham (Atwell) and Linda Keith (a never better Poots), the latter of whom discovers Hendrix in an empty New York club. These aspects, as well as brushes with 60s Britain’s racism, help make Ridley's film worth sticking with despite some very questionable decisions elsewhere in terms of writing and cinematic form.

Though Ridley's not a first-time filmmaker, the largely murky, sometimes outright ugly cinematography and favouring of herky-jerky editing might convince you otherwise. On a script level, meanwhile, one scene of public physical abuse against Etchingham (an incident she denies ever happened) belies the otherwise palpable honesty of Benjamin's performance: nothing about the incident happened in real life, and nothing about it feels coherent with the rest of the film.