Born to Be Blue (2016)

Absolutely Fantastic

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

It is really difficult to do something new about a jazz musician with a frenzied personal life be it women, alcohol, drugs or all three because it seems that all great jazz musicians had the same issues.Born to be Blue is a lower scale film but thematically not too different from Bird directed by Clint Eastwood back in 1988.Chet Baker was known for his west coast jazz sound. He also had problems with drug addiction and going in and out of prison. When he has his teeth smashed and has to wear dentures, Baker has to learn how to play the jazz trumpet again as well as stay clean when those around him are doubtful.Ethan Hawke gives a gut wrenching performance as Baker trying to start all over again as a musician when previously it had been all so easy. Now no one wants to give him another chance as he has let down so many people down in the past. The film though is low wattage and offers little new though.

Actor Ethan Hawke under the direction of director Robert Budreau gives a lasting performance in a emotional-mixed Biopic on Jazz Musician Chet Baker. The film itself shifts between black and white imagery and color reality bites to shine some light on drug-induced life of struggling artist. With a simplified screenplay on a rise-fall-rise story, "Born To Be Blue" becomes Ethan Hawke's show from the first minute. He researched the subject matter to a self-preserving state in every scene, interacting with female lead Carmen Ejogo to such an extent of full chemistry, especially in a marriage proposing scene inside a camping van, when the character of Chet Baker dismantles his trumpet to present a connecting ring piece as proposal band to the character of Jane. She accepts his proposal by hanging the trumpet's connection piece on a chain around her neck. The love story seems to good to be true, which ultimately leads to their downfall, when Jane realizes that Chet's drug abuse brings out the best of play. She becomes third rate in his life after Jazz and the drugs. The couple goes their separate ways. "Born To Be Blue" sounds like melodrama. Nevertheless director Robert Budreau manages to make the audience feel that Chet Baker's life has been a victory. Even though the film breathes solely on Ethan Hawke's performance, who indulges every possible Biopic on struggling musician, which came before it "Bird" (1988), "Ray" (2004) even the release-wise parallel competing "Miles Ahead" (2015). The actor departs from the rest of jazz musician interpretation by giving a two times vocal performance between recording trumpet session, which lifts the empathetic level of the picture within seconds by striking the audience's ear. All to the fortunate outcome of a director's vision, which gets away with mediocre camera motion works and less to no wide shots on a story of an isolated man.

Ethan Hawke as Chet Baker is giving us a characterization of Chet Baker not as the person but surely as what it felt like to be Chet Baker. It is Chet Baker trying to understand himself and how his music was a projection of himself to which he was always striving to make more perfect. No human can do this therefore the heroin was an escape from himself.Carmen Ejogo positively shines as the two women in his life. As his girlfriend Elaine she tries to bring some sense of balance and grounding into his mixed-up life and realizes late into their loveship she will always be second to his music and drugs.This story is fascinating and painful. And this is where the viewer may experience compassion burnout because Baker is forever making the same mistakes. He cannot see this but you the viewer will see it and by movies end you just do not care anymore. Everything about this movie is right but by the end you are just at the point of being bored!Still this is a film worth every minute of viewing time.

To start is necessary to say that this movie wouldn't be half as good without Robert Budreau's vision. Otherwise, it would be just another bio-pic about a musician that people kinda forgot.Burdreau's bold decisions, like using the black and white "footage" of the movie Chet was staring as flashbacks, and by that, having one actress, the lovely Carmem Ejogo, playing two parts, both as Jane and Elaine, or having two actors on one row, like Dick, by Callum Keith Rennie and Joe Cobden. If half of the success was on the decisions of the director, the other half it has to be on Ethan Hawke's performance. He incorporated completely the character of Chet. Everything, from the body language, the gestures, the expressions, the pantomime at the trumpet and the voice. The way of talking was pure Chet Baker, part smooth and romantic, part cynical and hopeless. The insistence with the fake teeth. All of that was pure Chet. Hawke is a hard actor to lose on the character, there's always something that identifies Hawke, that makes you remember "Training Day", the "Before Trilogy" and even "Sinister", that common thing to his performance in those otherwise completely different movies. But in "Born To Be Blue" Hawke vanishes inside the character, maybe for being as cool as the actor, but in no moment I could see other person but Chet Baker. For me, that will be his image, more than any other actual footage of the musician.Talking performances, the co-star Carmem Ejogo was just delightful. And even both parts not being superficially much different, there was nuance. Elaine and Jane had different dynamics with Chet, and most of it pass under the radar, but to make it work as it did in the final cut, it was great. And there was Callum, the eternal Great Ashby, but here he delivers a solid performance as the producer Dick Bock, sometimes a worried friend, sometimes a guy that is tired to trying to save someone who don't want to be saved.The story. Well, that's an unauthorized bio-pic, and its synopsis state already that this is "A re-imagining of jazz legend Chet Baker's musical comeback in the late '60s". How much of what we see in the movie is factual? How accurate is Budreau's script? Does it matters that much? Born to be blue is engaging, not 'cause its a bio- pic, but 'cause it's a good movie, with a good script, a good directing and good performances. What's true or not, we may let it to the next documentary on Chet Baker.This is a must watch!!!