Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

This is how to make a rock bio-pic. From the first frames of Peter Blake’s pop art title sequence to the last frames of concert footage over the end credits, this movie is intelligent, engaging and hugely imaginative. First time feature director Mat Whitecross hardly puts a foot wrong and enhances the story-telling with judicious use of animation, surrealism and other visual tricks.

It’s quite a story. Ian Dury emerged in the immediate post-punk era with a somewhat ramshackle band, Kilburn and the High Roads, which was not good enough to support his quirky take on life and his difficult and demanding personality. But on meeting Chaz Jankel he found a musician able to complement his writing, and the Blockheads went on to have several compulsively singable singles and high-selling albums.

All the time Dury was fighting the inner demons which stemmed from his contracting polio at the age of seven and being packed off to a repressive, bullying children’s home by his largely absent father. This is brought to life most persuasively, and Paul Viragh’s script is commendable for not ducking Dury’s own disparaging treatment of the women in his life and the casual neglect of his own children.

The energy and excitement of the early concerts is captured well (wish I’d been there) and what could have been a long final act of over-the-hill listlessness is kept very much under control. Andy Serkis is terrific as Dury – an awards-worthy performance – and all the support, especially from Naomie Harris and Olivia Williams, is good. The film does not cover every aspect of Dury’s colourful life, but nonetheless brings this very English maverick to the screen with humour and understanding, and knocks the recently released Nowhere Boy into a cocked hat.