‘Taking Woodstock’ never really takes flight

By the time we get to Woodstock in the new movie “Taking Woodstock,” we have had to sit through a long opening act. That’s because Ang Lee’s historical comedy-drama is less about the landmark 1969 festival itself and more about how an unassuming local entrepreneur in upstate New York accidentally came to save it and was saved by it.

There really is no larger point, no metaphors or conclusions with current resonance to be drawn from this entertaining re-creation. The preparations and prelude to the three-day rock concert consume over half of the film, which finally only exists to tell one closeted young man’s coming-out story. But as the momentum builds and the half-million finally bombard a pastoral enclave, the movie eventually gets to the show and does convey some of the unique flavor of a memorable moment-in-time with humor, vibrancy and some psychedelic accuracy.

Of course, 1970s classic three-hour documentary “Woodstock” (co-edited by a young Martin Scorsese) did all that better and showcased the music, which remains the most lasting legacy of the experience. “Taking” takes liberally from the definitive piece. It “pays tribute” by using actors to restage exact scenes and by adopting its split-screen technique. But this only reminds us of how perfectly the seminal happening of a generation was already captured on film.

Behind such modern masterpieces as “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Brokeback Mountain,” Lee collaborates again with screenwriter-producer James Schamus to adapt Elliot Tiber’s memoir “Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life.”

Told from Elliot’s point of view, as portrayed by the less-than-charismatic comedian Demetri Martin, it traces how he attracted the event to his small Catskills town at the 11th hour after the originally planned venue fell through. His family’s ramshackle motel becomes the organizers’ headquarters and the infectiously joyful hippie culture descends. Soon, the latently gay Elliot and his curmudgeonly immigrant parents (overplayed for both comedy and pathos by Imelda Staunton and Henry Goodman) are transformed financially, individually and in their uneasy relationships with each other.

Representing some of the types liberated by the times, Emile Hirsch plays a traumatized Vietnam War vet and Liev Schreiber plays a brazenly butch drag queen.

These bigger names help sell a picture by one of the world’s most talented directors that’s more diverting sidebar than main event. But Lee’s flare still makes this flagging freakfest fly.