Daisy Jones & The Six Review by Josh Davis : Pop Culture Leftovers

Daisy Jones & The Six Review by Josh Davis

April 29, 2023 11:53 am |

“Daisy Jones & The Six,” a new series from Amazon Prime, is essentially a biopic about a fictional 1970s band that’s loosely modeled on Fleetwood Mac.

The show is based on the novel of the same name by Taylor Jenkins Reid. It was developed by developed by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, who previously wrote book-to-movie adaptions “The Spectacular Now,” “The Fault in Our Stars,” and “Paper Towns.” The pair also wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for “The Disaster Artist.”

The pilot opens with the band members being interviewed 20 years after the breakup of Daisy Jones & The Six in 1977. There’s little explanation of the reasons why, but instead we get an origin story of the core band members coming together in high school in Pittsburgh, plus flashes of Daisy’s adolescence in Los Angeles.

A few scenes later, the child actors are replaced by their adult versions: Riley Keough as Daisy Jones, Sam Claflin as Billy Dunne, Will Harrison as Graham Dunne, Sebastian Chacon as Warren Rojas, and Josh Whitehouse as Eddie Roundtree.

Daisy grew up in a family of privilege, but was often ignored and scolded for being different. Bored and neglected, she escaped into rock and roll, sneaking into clubs to watch The Byrds, The Doors, The Who, Cream, and Led Zeppelin.

The boys, meanwhile, started a garage band and played Creedence Clearwater Revival and other covers at proms and parties. There’s a scene early on where older Billy turns to the camera and says, “There was two options for the kids in my town: There was the mill or there was the war. I always dreamed of something different.”

It’s that kind of trope that holds the pilot back, as opposed to better written rock and roll stories like “Almost Famous,” or grittier ones like “Backbeat” or “Walk the Line.”

The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of incredible revolution in the U.S., both culturally and musically. “Daisy Jones & The Six,” however, is too whitewashed and sterile for what it wants to be, like a TV show cosplaying as a better, deeper, more meaningful story.

Even some of the darker scenes, like the suggestion that Daisy was sexually assaulted by Jim Morrison, are undercut by poor editing and the odd choice of having his poster on her wall in the next scene. A scene where the Dunne brothers confront their estranged father at a concert comes off more like an afterschool special than serious drama.

By the end of the pilot, the boys have vowed to move to LA to become famous. Daisy, meanwhile, is already there, bursting for a chance to use her creative voice.

Keough is probably the best actor of the pilot, and you do get a sense that she has power and substance, and a voice and something to say. Claflin, on the other hand, just feels like a watered-down version of a 1970s rock star. He’s white bread, from a white-bread town, and his dreams and motives feel superficial. Even when he sings, he looks like a caricature.

The show may yet find its footing, but the pilot just didn’t find its groove.

For anyone looking for something more substantial, two recent documentaries “1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything” and “Summer of Soul,” offer blistering, authentic, and gripping looks into the same time period. And you can’t beat their soundtracks.

PCL Rating: Low Taste It

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: Rotten