Woodstock or Bust follows two songbird friends (played appealingly by Willow Shields and Meg DeLacy) who attempt to trek to the 1969 music fest with dreams of performing on-stage. Directed with delicacy by Leslie Bloom, the film is one of those coming-of-age tales of young friendship that may have hit me harder emotionally as a freshman college student--it seems aimed at this demographic who may be just beginning to dip their toes with interest in a time gone by, rather than an older group accustomed to either real-life experiences or more enveloping, complex portrayals.
As mentioned in previous reviews this year, there's been a bevy of late 60s / early 70s-set movies in recent months (Annabelle Comes Home, Rocketman, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) of varying degree of quality. All share a similar ache. Woodstock or Bust, with its plucked guitar throwback score by Blair Borland (slight incarnations of "Born to Be Wild, "Touch Me," and "Eight Days a Week" abound) and angelic original songs by Michelle Curtis Purvance ("Northern Lights" is a highlight), is a road-trip movie of an emboldened female friendship that lands with a starry-skied hush.
