Almost Famous

(15, 126 minutes)

ALL the attention has fallen on starlet Kate Hudson, goldilocks daughter of Seventies icon Goldie Hawn, for her Oscar-tipped role as groupie Penny Lane in Cameron Crowe's semi-autobiographical tale of rock'n'roll excess.

Yes, Miss Hudson - who appears to have taken her research as far as romancing and now marrying Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes - is a beauteous distraction, but the central role goes to one Patrick Fugit, a newcomer who candidly admits his rock'n'roll knowledge wouldn't fill a tick box.

He is 15-year-old William Miller, Crowe's re-incarnation of his youthful self in his under-age, cub reporter days in the Seventies. Living only for rock, the cute, but not yet acute , William is commissioned by Rolling Stone magazine to follow Stillwater, a band fashioned in the image of the Allman Brothers, The Eagles and Peter Frampton, but blighted with internal feuds and songs that fall just short of memorable.

Miller has been brought up by his puritanical, over-protective college professor mother (the ever wonderful Frances McDormand) in an anti-rock, anti-drugs home environment that has inevitably fostered a fascination in the wild side of life.

Even if she fears he is entering a den of drug-fed iniquity, she does not stand in his way, and so begins another rose-tinted journey into the soul of the entertainment industry as Crowe, the writer who showed you more than the money in the Oscar-winning Jerry Maguire, celebrates the Seventies' long-haired, moustachioed music scene with affection if not total authenticity.

The awe-struck Miller sets out on his rites of passage armed with tips from legendary rock journalist Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to be "honest and unmerciful". Soon, however, he is way-laid by a combination of Penny Lane and her playful groupie friends - or "band aids" as they style themselves - and the interview-stalling tactics of Stillwater's guitarist, the ever-elusive and mercurial Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup).

Cameron Crowe paints a nostalgic, heart-felt, bruised romantic picture of band tantrums; groupie shenanigans with an abused and disabused Penny Lane; adolescent lessons in adult life; and journalism's corruptible limitations.

In capturing the Seventies spirit, his tone is droll yet sufficiently straight to steer Almost Famous away from the satirical madness of This Is Spinal Tap. Crowe's undying love for that old rogue, rawk music, shines through. Warts and all, you crave a return to that wild revelry in this age of manufactured, squeaky clean pop puppets.