My Generation *** (2017, Michael Caine, Paul McCartney, Twiggy, Joan Collins, David Bailey, Marianne Faithfull, Roger Daltrey) – Movie Review 

Still effortlessly witty, smooth and cool, Michael Caine is your on-screen host and commentator for this funny, entertaining and likeable documentary ramble down memory lane of the wonderful time the British young working class had in the Sixties.

The much too short 85 minutes rushes by in a great fun montage of clips old and new, with amusing script-writing by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (some of the jokes, I suppose) and off-screen vocal appearances by Paul McCartney, Twiggy, Joan Collins, David Bailey, Marianne Faithfull, and Roger Daltrey.

Some interesting facts can be gathered along the way. For example, McCartney recalls how he give his Lennon–McCartney-penned number I Wanna Be Your Man to his friend Mick Jagger to record in 1963 as the Rolling Stones’ second single, becoming their first top 20 hit.

But My Generation is mostly an excuse, if any is needed, for pure, sweet nostalgia. It does not cut very deep, but you do not want it to, and the Sixties were all about veneer and image anyway. No pundits, gurus or professors or psychologists are summoned for help to explain the Sixties, or give learned views of why the Swinging Sixties swung, just a couple of handfuls of famous ones that were there at the time.

It is told in three chapters, in an attempt to give it structure, and suggest it is telling a story, the story of the Sixties. But this just breaks up the flow (though it will be good for it when it is on TV and they can use it for ad breaks) and emphasises the idea that, on the contrary, the Sixties didn’t actually have a story. It came, it went, some people had a very good time with sex and drugs and rock ‘n roll, and some, a very few got rich and famous. And a very few of them are here to tell their tales.

Michael Caine suggests in his humble sort of way that he was typical, his life story is just one of the many, and that we can make assumptions and come to conclusions about the Sixties based on his experiences. This cannot be true. Michael Caine is a truly remarkable individual, a unique character and personality, now the living actor with most screen credits. There is nothing typical or ordinary about him. He is one of the great, and few, Sixties international names and survivors. How typical is that?

We can take what he says, like the film, in the spirit that it is offered, a fun, warmly nostalgic reminiscence. The legendary Sixties survive through these stories and images. Michael Caine is the British movie symbol and icon of the Sixties as the Beatles and Stones are the pop icons.

Back to the film. If the visuals are a riot of pop art colour, many of the Sixties best ever UK pop singles grace the soundtrack, many of them by the Beatles and Stones. The London Film Festival notes suggest you will come away from the film singing the Kinks’ Waterloo Sunset. Catchy though that is, I came away singing Strawberry Fields. I have never heard it so spectacularly well as on the sound system at the BFI Southbank. It is a revelation. However, the Stones’ Satisfaction gets my vote as the pop song of the Sixties.

You hope My Generation will be good, but it is even better than you would imagine.

Lionsgate has picked up the UK rights from IM Global for release in 2018. ‘I am so pleased to hear that Lionsgate has picked up My Generation,’ Michael Caine said. ‘I had a wonderful experience with them on Harry Brown and am so happy to be working with them again.’

© Derek Winnert 2017 Movie Review 

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