A moving tribute to an iconic artist who died young

This documentary about Jeff Buckley should please fans and serve as an excellent introduction to his music for the uninitiated.

PLOT: The life and career of singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley, who posthumously rose to fame after his tragic, mysterious death at only thirty years old.

REVIEW: One of the ways I judge a documentary is how “inside baseball” it is for the uninitiated. This approach is sometimes necessary, especially when your subject’s life has been chronicled at length – such as another doc I saw here at Sundance, One to One: John & Yoko. Yet, when the subject is more niche, this approach doesn’t always work as it limits the potential audience. Such was my fear walking into It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley. While an icon, I must admit my knowledge of him is limited to his iconic cover of “Hallelujah” and the fact that he died young. As such, I figured I’d be lost watching this.

Happily, director Amy Berg (West of Memphis) strikes a good balance, making this a thoughtful documentary that should please devotees of Buckley’s music while also serving as a good entry point to those who may not know much about him. For those who don’t know, Buckley was a rising star in the mid-nineties, and his music earned him comparisons to Bob Dylan. His debut album, “Grace,” was a moderate success in North America but a blockbuster in much of Europe, and at the time he died (of an accidental drowning), he was working on a second album that many thought would be his breakthrough. After he passed, “Grace” went platinum, while his cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” eventually hit number one and has become, arguably, one of the most iconic recordings of our era.

Berg’s film does an excellent job establishing Buckley’s place in the pantheon and his often frustrating rise to fame. His record company hyped him as the next big thing, but his first album fell short of the expected benchmarks. This resulted in him spending close to three years maintaining a hectic touring schedule that wreaked havoc on his personal life and mental health. 

His family life was complicated as well, with him the son of Tim Buckley, a folk-rock icon who died young at 28 of a heroin overdose and abandoned his son at a young age. Buckley had to live up to the expectations set by fans of his father while also wrestling with the fact that he resented his father’s lack of a role in his life and the need to establish his own musical identity. 

Most of Buckley’s friends and intimates are interviewed, including two significant girlfriends and, most movingly, his mother, with whom he shared an intense but loving relationship (with her prone to unwelcome interactions with his fans in early internet chatrooms). As a music fan, I was most fascinated by how he struggled to balance his artistic ambitions with a need for some commercial breakthrough, which seemed elusive. His fans were passionate at the time, with Brad Pitt one notable early acolyte (he also served as a producer on this), while he was also raved about by one of his musical idols, Robert Plant. 

Still, the expectations weighed heavily on him, and Berg does a good job showing how a sensitive soul like him had to struggle with the expectations placed on him by an industry that saw him as a marketable product. Ironically, in death, he became the cash cow the company likely wanted him to be, although watching this one can’t help but lament how he would have likely gone on to great things had he lived.

If you’ve never heard of Jeff Buckley or—like me—have limited knowledge, this is a perfect entry point into a solid legacy of music that’s endured remarkably well in the twenty-eight years since his passing. While we lost him way too young, no one can deny his work has given him a degree of immortality few achieve.