Pavements opens on an army of Santa Clauses hunting a rotisserie chicken with bows and arrows, and only gets more confusing from there. Viewers should expect no different from a hybrid documentary–biopic about Pavement, the messy, sardonic ‘90s rock group that is perhaps the California Central Valley’s most important export besides almonds. While the group’s explosive career only spanned about a decade, the depth of their impact on the modern indie scene is immeasurable. In one of the few moments where the band’s music is allowed to speak for itself, the film’s first few minutes simply showcase the music videos for the group’s songs “Gold Soundz” and “Cut Your Hair.” While on its surface a display of just how ridiculous Pavement can be, this opening section is also sincere in its appreciation for the band’s sonic and visual artistry, even as it appears outwardly absurd. If the experimental documentary can be said to have a “point,” it is precisely this—a celebration of both the enduring brilliance of Pavement’s music and the tongue–in–cheek spirit that made them the patron saints of a generation of burnouts.
The film’s framing is deceptively simple—after years apart, Pavement is finally reuniting to play one last show at Primavera Sound in Barcelona. To mark the band’s reunion, director Alex Ross Perry has spearheaded three unique projects that celebrate their legacy: a big–budget feature film (Range Life), an off–off–Broadway musical (Slanted! Enchanted!) and a temporary museum of Pavement memorabilia in New York City. The film tells all of these stories at once, cutting indiscriminately between the real (interviews with the band throughout the ‘90s), the fake (“behind the scenes” footage of Joe Keery going method to play a young Stephen Malkmus) and the somewhere–in–between (semi–professional stage actors rehearsing choreo and emoting wildly to “Shady Lane” and “Fillmore Jive”). The film jumps wildly from scene to scene, hesitant to linger in one place any longer than strictly necessary. Though this clip–show format can be disorienting, Pavements’ more orthodox documentary elements—charting the band’s career from their hazy, underdeveloped first single “You’re Killing Me” to their polished final project Terror Twilight—offer viewers some much needed stability. True to its word, Pavements grants audiences a look at the inner workings of the world’s most important and influential band (the movie’s words, though co–signed by me).
If you approach Pavements looking to learn the band’s story from start to finish, you’ll likely come away with more questions than answers. It’s more video collage than film, frequently using split–screens to counterpose real archival footage of the band with scenes from one of Perry’s modern commemorations of their legacy. At times, the movie even blends together multiple audio tracks to make it less clear which of the concurrent scenes is meant to draw the viewer’s attention. The music, of course, is given plenty of solo space. Though it can be frustrating that the band’s music is only ever showcased in 20–to 30–second snippets, the film does a great job highlighting tracks across Pavement’s diverse discography and ensuring each needle drop is thematically appropriate to the scene: “Lions (Linden)” for the band’s suburban ennui in Stockton, Calif., and a Glee–style musical theater arrangement of “Major Leagues” for the film’s almost tearful ending. With its quick movements and experimental documentary style, Pavements might be closer to a Pinterest mood board or an “aesthetic” TikTok than a big–budget biopic like Bohemian Rhapsody or Elvis. Much like these reels, the value of Pavements isn’t in any of the film’s individual elements or its ability to depict “reality,” but its ability to give physical form to something ethereal: the irreverent slacker ethos that made Pavement the patron saints of the emotionally stunted across the United States.
No documentary can ever tell the real story of its subject. After all, real life is always too arbitrary and inconsistent to make for a compelling film. What sets Pavements apart from others like it is where those distortions take place. Traditional tribute films will play with the content of a band’s story to more cleanly accord with the structure of a good film, stressing and devaluing different parts of their career to make the narrative dramatically compelling. Yet Perry goes even further, distorting the form of film itself and throwing out traditional narrative structure to try to explain what made Pavement’s music resonate with so many. Loud, crunchy guitar lines captured on guerrilla concert footage–washed–out, grainy recordings of Scott Kannberg mooning an audience–a young, fresh–faced Malkmus feeding reporters as many snarky lines as they can stomach before giving up on the interview. The compounding effect of these seemingly disconnected vignettes is, at least partially, to generate nostalgia for the ‘90s indie scene, but its real success is in demonstrating the closeness of Pavement’s spirit to that of our own age.
It’s hard not to see Pavement’s influence, from sardonic lyrics to their unique, blended guitar tone, on the best indie acts of today. Additionally, the grittiness of the archival footage we see, particularly from the band’s early career, helps ground them as authentic voices that value artistic freedom above all else. Frequently snotty and dismissive toward music journalists and industry insiders, Pavement’s commitment to recording what they wanted, when they wanted, continues to resonate in an age where many new releases feel increasingly manufactured by labels attempting to maximize streaming stats. Irreverent to their core, Pavement’s music doesn’t have to be good by anyone else’s standards—it simply is.
That irreverence is precisely what makes Pavement so hard to translate to film, particularly in a genre so prone to sentimentalism as the biopic. How do you tell an emotional story about a band whose flippancy is their calling card? It would have been just as ridiculous for Pavements to have gone the straight–laced documentary route—while perhaps informative, such a project would have demanded Perry throw away the pranksterism that brought Pavement such success. Rather than just representing Pavement’s spirit on screen, the film embodies it, blending elements of both genres and carefully straddling the line between irony and sincerity.
The fake blockbuster Range Life is perhaps the part of the film that translates best for non–Pavement listeners, playing up the melodrama of the musical biopic genre. Commitment to the bit is key, and Keery does a phenomenal job portraying an Oscar–hungry actor who takes the role of Pavement’s frontman because he “can’t play Billy Joel.” The “behind the scenes” footage of Keery’s descent into method–acting madness, from demanding that he be introduced as “Stephen” to becoming trapped in Malkmus’ Stockton accent, is a clear send–up of Austin Butler’s overcommitment to playing Elvis Presley. Toward the end of the film, Keery even begs his acting coach to teach him how to “exorcise” Malkmus’ spirit from his body. In case all of that fails to get the message across, the blurb “FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION” flashing across the screen as Jason Schwartzman screams about Wowee Zowee drives home the film’s critique of the masturbatory melodrama that dominates many musical biographies.
Slanted! Enchanted!, the film’s musical section, is the most outwardly ridiculous. Hearing Broadway hopefuls harmonize to “Ann Don’t Cry” and tumble across practice mats to the rhythm of “Gold Soundz” is a spectacle so bizarre it really defies description. As the film knows, bringing the often–detached and ironic music of Pavement to a medium as sincere as musical theater is by no means a smooth collision—it seems fair to say that Malkmus never envisioned “Rattled by the Rush” embellished by theatrical belting à la “Defying Gravity.” While we never get to see the finished product as a whole, Reddit comments from those who witnessed the full performance’s weeklong run describe it as “pretty lame,” “horrendous,” or, simply, “woof.” “Was it good? No,” one particularly optimistic viewer said, “but it was a fun way to spend an hour.”
Buried beneath ridiculous vocal runs and prop comedy, however, is a deep sincerity at the core of both Range Life and Slanted! Enchanted! The actors who show up to try out for the musical all gush enthusiastically about how much Pavement meant to them in their youth. On screen, Hollywood luminaries like Tim Heidecker rave about the impact Pavement had on their own development — a level of importance the band never seemed to place upon their own work. Looking over his old notebooks, Malkmus remarks that he never agonized over the lyrics to his songs, preferring instead to jot down interesting turns of phrase and see what could be put to music. That “shoot first, ask questions later” approach also extended to the band’s treatment of live shows, with Malkmus freestyling and speak–shouting his lyrics, and the band’s first drummer, Gary Young, gaining fame for giving leaves and vegetables to the crowd during shows in the early ‘90s.
The core idea both the “biopic” and musical bring to the screen is the peaceful coexistence of sincerity and irony. The stage actors know how ridiculous the play they’re staging is—yet they commit to the premise and give it their all, breathing every bit of emotion they can into their jukebox renditions of “We Dance” and “Here.” The team involved in Range Life are even clearer in their satirical intentions—despite that, their genuine desire to honor Pavement’s legacy remains the animating force behind the project at large. Like Keery getting trapped in his Malkmus impression, committing to any “bit” long enough eventually imbues it with a certain reality–similarly, the irony so central to Pavement’s project ultimately gives way to something of real significance and emotional depth when looked at in retrospect. This fact comes out clearest in the film’s portrayal of Malkmus, who is now almost 60 but still retains his signature wit. His presence today is a far cry from the bratty Malkmus of the ‘90s, who seemed more concerned with pulling a fast one on unsuspecting journalists than writing “good” music. Now, he displays a certain appreciation for his own work that he never seemed comfortable displaying on camera in the past. The film doesn’t shy away from doing the same—despite operating under multiple layers of irony, it’s never above breaking out of that shell to display its sincere love for its subjects.
The sincerest of the three commemorations is the Pavement museum, a temporary exhibit filled with both real artifacts and elaborate counterfeits. Notably, the many contemporary acts performing Pavement covers at the museum’s opening (including Soccer Mommy and Snail Mail) are fronted by women, showing clearly that the band’s modern impact extends beyond their stereotypical base of white, male skateboarders and burnouts. It’s here, with the band confronted by the weight of their own legacy, that the emotional core of the film truly shines through. Coming to terms with the impact they’ve had on music, culture, and the lives of those who grew up with their vinyl, all they can do is crack humble smiles and look back at their own careers in awe.
In a review of Pavements for The Ringer, Julianna Ress hits at the most important question Pavements raises: “How did Pavement create something lasting and important under the guise that they were just fucking around the whole time?” The film’s greatest strength is that it sidesteps that question entirely, focusing not on the Pavement of the ‘90s but the Pavement of the present, emphasizing the sprawling legacy the band has left behind. Unlike documentaries that try to tell the dramatic “true story” of any band, Pavements offers nothing about backstage conflicts or the dramatic flashes of inspiration behind famous songs. Instead, the picture we get of Pavement from both historical footage and interviews with the band today is precisely the picture we expect—a bunch of young, irreverent slackers who made it big doing things their way. The point the film makes is that the depth and emotional appeal of Pavement’s music isn’t defined by the circumstances of its creation, but by the context in which it exists today. There are plenty of moments in Pavement’s discography where real emotion shines through their ironic facade—take the droning string section of “Fight this Generation,” the wistful guitar line supporting “Spit on a Stranger,” or Malkmus’ pained scream that “boys are dying on these streets” in “Grounded.” But it’s only from the vantage point of the present, where Pavement can be seen as the musical pioneers they really are, that these tender moments can be appreciated in full. Perry is brilliant in capturing the band’s dual identity on film—his archival footage showcases the “real” Pavement, cheeky and flippant on stage and screen, while interviews with modern admirers puts a spotlight on the Pavement of our collective memory, personifications of a lost ‘90s spirit that continues to haunt the indie scene today.
Before finally taking the stage for their reunion at Primavera Sound, Malkmus remarks that the past few days have been the most they’ve ever practiced for a show in their lives. Though a large part of Pavement’s early appeal came from their cool, detached personas, the band today has overcome their bratiness (mostly) and is capable of grasping the magnitude of their own impact.
The film ends with an older Malkmus smiling wistfully as he looks back at his career, with a Broadway medley mixing “Shady Lane,” “Here,” and “Major Leagues” playing in the background. It sounds like it should come off mawkish and melodramatic, particularly after all the tongue–in–cheek commentary present throughout the rest of the film. But it doesn’t—carefully balancing pseudo–fictional “commemorations” of Pavement with real, touching footage of the band (both historical and contemporary). Pavements knows just when to wink and nudge at the audience and when to betray its appreciation for the legacy of the band it seeks to honor. The core appeal of the band lies not just in their detachment from the world, but in the fact that their music could evoke rich emotion while maintaining a certain indie credibility. Alongside their vaguely poetic lyrics and general tomfoolery, Pavement gave young adults the permission structure they needed to indulge in their emotions—Pavements’ finale does the same for an audience now almost 30 years older, celebrating the lives of the first (and maybe last) band to put Stockton, California on the map.
In a brief clip toward the middle of the film, an interviewer asks a young Malkmus, “How have you come this far without becoming pretentious? Perhaps you already are pretentious.” The question goes unanswered by Malkmus, but the film offers us a compelling thesis—who cares? Ironic in its sincerity, parodying the sappiness of the biopic genre while engaging in it when permissible, the film blows up the dichotomy between fiction and reality, aspiring to something more honest than either. Defying the band’s eulogy on “Fillmore Jive,” Pavements refuses to say goodbye to the rock and roll era, revealing that the aftershocks of indie slackerism are still being felt to this day—you just have to know where to look.
