Kimber Myers
Like many others, I started listening to the genre-bending sounds of Jeff Buckley after he died. In that liminal space between when he was featured on MTV’s 120 Minutes in the ‘90s and the invention of YouTube years later, it didn’t occur to me to hunt down music videos and performance footage on LimeWire or wherever Millennials and Gen X downloaded shit at glacial speeds back in the ancient days. Instead, I listened to a used CD of Grace and wondered what kind of person would get rid of an album like this. So for fans like me, It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley feels like a revelation; getting to actually see Buckley sing in that swooning voice is like hearing him for the first time. Yet the merits of Amy Berg’s documentary aren’t limited to the pleasures of seeing this generational talent perform. It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley is a marvelously edited trove of archival footage, ephemera, and interviews with friends, family, and former lovers.
As presented, the arc of Buckley’s life doesn’t stray far from the traditional narrative of rock docs. There’s the requisite troubled childhood (he was raised by a loving but young single mother and met his famous father, singer Tim Buckley, only shortly before his death of a heroin overdose). He was discovered and then struggled with the burdens of newfound fame. He had mental health issues and died young, only outlasting fellow legends like his dad by a handful of years. Though all of that follows a familiar script, Berg bolsters his story with some amazing artifacts that have somehow survived for decades. Buckley’s doodle-filled notebooks come to life through animation, and his lyrics are superimposed across the screen. It feels revelatory and intimate, giving fans a deeper understanding of the musician and the uninitiated a solid idea of what all the fuss was all about.
Through footage of Buckley and archival video of the time, Berg establishes exactly how good he was and the larger cultural context he existed in as both an artist and a person. She includes interviews with fellow musicians and friends Aimee Mann and Ben Harper, who provide insights and anecdotes. Even decades later, Buckley at once sounds like nothing and no one else, while his diverse influences are clear: Led Zeppelin, Nina Simone, and Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Contemporaneous quotes from names ranging from David Bowie to Brad Pitt (who serves as an executive producer via Plan B) show just how well regarded he was at the time.
Yet the famous faces aren’t what drives the film or uncovers the most about who Buckley was both on and off stage. Instead, interviews with three women in Buckley’s life anchor It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley. Former girlfriends Rebecca Moore and Joan Wasser share stories that emphasize his sensitive, mercurial nature, which was illuminated to the world through the emotional music he created. However, his tender heart is most clear through interviews with his mother, Mary Guibert, who gets an executive producer credit and whose participation was instrumental to the film’s creation. She paints a picture of a loving son who provided emotional support to a mother who wasn’t that much older or wiser than he was.
Though it features stylish flourishes through its animation and masterful editing, It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley isn’t groundbreaking in its approach. Yet Berg, who has been making impressive docs like Deliver Us from Evil and West of Memphis for decades, executes the standard form with brio. It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley feels imbued with his spirit in haunting ways, and it leaves you with feelings of regret for how short a time he was alive. With just a single studio album and a few live and unproduced recordings, he left relatively little output behind but clearly made quite an impact on those he knew and those who loved his music.
A-
“It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley” is in theaters Friday.
