The story of Elliot Tiber and his family, who inadvertently played a pivotal role in making the famed Woodstock Music and Arts Festival into the happening that it was. When Elliot hears that a neighboring town has pulled the permit on a hippie music festival, he calls the producers thinking he could drum up some much-needed business for his parents' run-down motel. Three weeks later, half a million people are on their way to his neighbor’s farm in White Lake, New York, and Elliot finds himself swept up in a generation-defining experience that would change his life–and American culture–forever.
Taking Woodstock has the appeal of an inside story told from an especially good angle. But beyond that, the movie is a celebration of the way this event has gone into memory and of the meaning it has acquired.
– Mick LaSalle,
San Francisco Chronicle,
28 Aug 2009
fresh:
This is very light material, and, unusually for a Lee picture, not everybody in the ensemble appears to be acting in the same universe, let alone the same story. On the other hand: It's fun.
– Michael Phillips,
Chicago Tribune,
28 Aug 2009
rotten:
It's harmless enough as a snapshot of a young man's awakening to the grand possibilities of adult life, but not particularly effective at capturing the spirit, the thrill or even the mud of this culturally monumental event.
– Stephanie Zacharek,
Salon.com,
28 Aug 2009
rotten:
Too much of Taking Woodstock seems barely sketched out.
– Stephen Whitty,
Newark Star-Ledger,
28 Aug 2009
fresh:
This may be a minor movie, but it displays the hallmarks of a major talent.