**** out of *****

As a culture, we revel in nostalgia. Our “I Love the ’80s”-soaked minds jump at every opportunity to live in the past. Ang Lee’s latest film, Taking Woodstock, starts off with this in mind. But instead of spending the entire running time waxing reminiscent about all things 1960s, Taking Woodstock rises above being a mere nostalgic ode to the past.

The film, based on the memoir of the same name, centers on Elliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin), who moves out of the city and in with his Russian immigrant parents (Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton) to help run their motel in rural New York. After failing at everything he does to attract visitors to the area, Elliot ends up drawing the organizers of Woodstock to his town.

As Elliot, the person through whom the entire spectacle of Woodstock is viewed, Martin is charged with the task of holding up the film. He does this capably, but the other actors really shine. Staunton turns in an uproarious performance as Elliot’s mother, a hardworking old woman who tries to both charge her customers for towels and to section off motel rooms to make more money. And the show is stolen by Liev Schreiber, who plays transvestite ex-Marine Vilma. Martin is good enough in what is one of his first leading roles, but the work of the other actors truly lift the movie.

Visually, Taking Woodstock is, for the most part, striking. Lee and cinematographer Eric Gautier take set designer Ellen Christensen’s broken-down El Monaco hotel and purposely drab Bethel and turn them into something beautiful. The quaint motel and town become the center of the universe for a month as thousands of people clog roadways, farmland, and forests throughout the area. The filmmakers do a wonderful job showing the transition into this vibrant, beautiful beast of a locale, showing both the good and the bad of thousands of hippies taking over a small town brilliantly.

The film’s most beautiful moment occurs when Elliot, on his way to see some of the show, stops to converse with two people (Kelli Garner and Paul Dano) whom he has never met before. He decides to take acid with them, and the resulting trip is nothing short of gorgeous. Instead of opting to shoot the traditional cinematic acid freak-out, with morphing people and tie-dye everywhere, they go for a much more understated look. As the three characters lock themselves in the van, the colors of all the paintings on vehicle’s interior begin to shine brighter. The brush strokes begin to move in waves. Beauty is all around.

There are some hiccups, including a few too many split-screen shots that look like they’re out of the world’s slowest-moving action montage, but overall, this is one of Lee’s most beautiful films.

If there are any major problems with this movie, they’re script-based. The movie follows a sort of back-and-forth pattern, where something bad happens, followed immediately by something good that starts to become bothersome, and some characters drop out of the film seemingly at random, their stories left unfinished. But, for all of its faults, James Schamus’ adaptation of Elliot Teichberg’s memoir (written under the name Elliot Tiber) remains enthralling and pulls you into the lives of most of the characters, fully detailing both the humor and pain of the people whose lives were changed when Woodstock came knocking on their doors.

Despite a few fits and starts, Taking Woodstock is certainly a great film. More than mere nostalgia or an acid trip, the film is beautiful, and always full of life.