Tim Buckleyâs prodigious musical gifts bloomed in inverse proportion to his paternal instincts. The legendary folk-jazz singer wrote some of the most beautiful songs ever and sang like a demonic angel. Butâunfortunately for his son Jeff, also an inordinately talented vocalist/composerâTim couldnât father worth a damn (he reputedly saw his child only twice). âMy wife hates my musicâ seems to be his rationale to cheat.
Greetings from Tim Buckley revolves around the conflict the ignored offspring feels about performing at a tribute concert in Brooklynâs St. Annâs Church for his absentee pa, who died at 28 of an accidental drug overdose. (Jeff died at 30 while swimming fully clothed in Memphisâs Wolf River.) Light on dramatic tension, the film toggles between Jeffâs preparation for the 1991 eventâand the attendant mixed feelings toward his fatherâs legacyâand Timâs musical and sexual conquests circa 1966, the year Jeff was born.
The extraordinarily cheekboned Penn Badgley portrays Jeff as a tormented artiste who broods cutely. He adequately approximates Buckleyâs soaring, ululating vocal style, and at the climactic concert, he aces two Tim songsââI Never Asked to Be Your Mountainâ and âPhantasmagoria in Twoââwith the makeshift band, including Jeffâs real-life musical partner, Gary Lucas. The show concludes with Jeff owning the tenderly gorgeous ballad âOnce I Wasâ solo. Thus, Jeff Buckleyâs career was launched.
The budding-romance side plot between Jeff and tribute-concert factotum Allie (Imogen Poots) adds little to the real meat of Greetings: the immortal compellingness of Tim Buckleyâs songsâeven in the filmâs rearranged versions of them. (For a more thorough homage to Timâs music, see the 2007 doc My Fleeting House.)