Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

Andy Serkis is the reason to watch Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, a music biography whose busy presentation makes an already untidy story harder to follow. Director Mat Whitecross pursues something of Ian Dury’s unruliness, and there is something welcome in that ambition. The trouble is that activity keeps taking the place of explanation. The musical performances reward the attention that the domestic drama too often takes for granted.

We were stirred by the singing, particularly the force Andy Serkis gives Ian Dury’s distinctive phrasing. He gets the physical presence right too, making the musical performances feel urgent even when the surrounding story has lost its way. Chaz Jankel’s music helps make these the passages in which the film feels most sure of what it is doing. The pleasure is strong enough that the return to the personal story can feel like an interruption.

The performance also has moments when the effort to hold our attention becomes too visible. Olivia Williams as Betty Dury and Naomie Harris as Denise have the difficult job of making other lives matter beside such an insistent central figure. Bill Milner’s Baxter Dury adds another claim on our attention, but Paul Viragh’s screenplay keeps bringing us back to familiar family drama. The private material takes up enough of the film that its conventional treatment becomes a substantial problem, particularly for anyone drawn here by the music.

Cinematographers Christopher Ross and Brian Tufano give the film a visual restlessness that suits its lead, although the insistence on keeping things lively becomes wearing. Richard Bullock’s production design has to compete with that activity, and the settings get too little chance to establish a life around the performer. We can understand the wish to make a film about Ian Dury look unruly. But the domestic scenes need enough space for us to notice somebody other than him, and the busy presentation works against that.

Peter Christelis’s editing makes the film harder to follow by breaking up a story that needs firmer connections. At 115 minutes, there is time to help us understand the people around Ian Dury, but we repeatedly find ourselves catching up with changes of direction. The shifts interrupt our interest in the relationships, and recovering that interest takes longer than the film allows. Several passages would benefit from the simple decision to stay with a person or a situation until it has become clear why it matters.

For all its bustle, this remains a fairly conventional music biography, with a dominant central performance doing much of the work that the writing has left unfinished. Mat Whitecross deserves credit for showing Ian Dury’s flaws, and the film never depends on our finding him easy to like. The songs make the strongest case for putting up with the muddle. Anyone after a clear introduction to Ian Dury should expect to do some work afterwards.