Teenage loner and music devotee Will Burton (Gaelan Connell) has, by his own admission, become comfortably numb. A wallflower at school in Cincinnati because of his father's drunk-driving conviction, he writes emails non-stop to David Bowie without a reply. Soon his single mum Karen (Lisa Kudrow) does him a favour by quitting her job and taking him with her interstate for a fresh start. On his first day at his new school Martin Van Buren High, he meets fellow loner Sa5m (Vanessa Hudgens; the 5 is silent, as she immediately emphasises), an aspiring singer who's in his Human Studies class (I assume that's what Social Studies is called Stateside). Seeking a musical niche through which to make a name for himself, Sa5m tells Will about a local battle of the bands competition called "Bandslam," which he scopes out before meeting Charlotte Barnes (Aly Michalka), a girl whom a distrusting Sa5m claims is so popular she has her own Wikipedia entry. Will quickly takes a liking to Charlotte (and no, there's no "Waiting for her to drop a pen in class" moment") but naturally, complicating this is the fact that, Sa5m develops a crush on him. Meanwhile, with the Bandslam contest in mind, Will manages to get them to play together alongside new recruits Bug (Charlie Saxton), wannabe Brit Omar (Tim Jo) and the short-tempered drummer Basher Martin (Ryan Donowho). Together, they form the band I Can't Go on, I'll Go On, and when he's not preparing them as their manager for the Bandslam show against Charlotte's ex Ben Wheatley (Scott Porter) and his band the Glory Dogs, Will has to navigate his way around the love triangle which has made him a thorn between two barely civil roses.
Bandslam must be one the sweetest and most sensitive and genuinely cool coming-of-age flicks of this century so far. Director and co-writer (with Josh Cagan) Todd Graff, who as a musician in his youth actually played at the legendary CBGB's venue in New York City which Will and Sa5m visit in the movie (he also played Allan "Hippy" Carnes in James Cameron's The Abyss), clearly identified with every facet of this story and therefore knows just the right visual cues, soundtrack selections and pacing methods for each character and scene. He tells this narrative with thorough joy that's infectious even for a fellow music nut like me who doesn't need that sort of prodding, and the screenplay manages the challenging balance of having these adolescent characters talk with realistic intelligence, and Graff helps his cast bring them all to life very naturally. I think the most common pitfalls of teen films or films about music (or both) is that they either try too hard or not hard enough to be hip, but because Graff has likely walked in these characters' shoes, he was just the director to keep this movie in that blissful and sincere middle ground and he keeps it there throughout. Bandslam feels like a Cameron Crowe take on John Hughes territory, but that's just why I love it so much. It can go on, it goes on.
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