This Dude’s Hurtin’

Little strummer boy: Guy Terrifico (Matt Murphy) in The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico. Courtesy Alliance Atlantis.

The entire history of country music, and in particular country-rock, is one in which authenticity is constantly tested, negated and manipulated. From Bob Dylan to Kris Kristofferson to Gram Parsons, musicians have turned their backs on their backgrounds, absorbing old musical traditions and reinventing themselves as the legends we now know.

This kind of metamorphosis is at the heart of The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico, a “honky tonkumentary” that asks us to imagine that Canada was once blessed, or cursed, with a hard-living country-rock music star from Alberta named Guy Terrifico (Matt Murphy). His faux life story parallels Dylan’s in every way but the geographical: born Jim Jablowski, the son of Ukrainian immigrants, Terrifico picked up a guitar at an early age, formed a band (Jim Jablowski and the Cabbage Roll Boys) and toured the United States, where he became a kind of folk troubadour, eventually making his way to the coffee houses of Vancouver.

But Jablowski, for all of his talent, was also a mess — a heavy-drinking, pill-popping klutz — and success came not in the form of a hit record but a lottery ticket. Just before he could finish recording his debut album, Jablowski won the biggest jackpot in Canadian history; suddenly, music seemed beside the point. He threw a week-long party, a bacchanal where, in the words of one participant, there were “whores on horses, horses on whores.” After getting kicked in the head by one of the animals, Jablowski awoke to announce himself reborn. Jim Jablowski was no more, and in his place stood Guy Terrifico.

Where there's smoke, there's Guy: Terrifico and fellow revelers. Courtesy Alliance Atlantis.

Terrifico opened a bar that all the greats — Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, the Rolling Stones — passed through (and passed out in). He became a cross between renowned n’er-do-well singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt and Woody Allen’s Zelig, always in the right place at the right time. (At one point in the film, Terrifico appears with then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau.) The drinking and drugs ramped up. Terrifico became known for simulating sex with a drum kit. In Nashville, he got beat up by Haggard and arrested for wreaking havoc on a Christian TV show. Terrifico eventually got clean, and turned more seriously to his music. But his newfound sobriety didn’t sit well with his fun-loving fans; Terrifico was shot while onstage, and his body mysteriously disappeared en route to the hospital.

Terrifico is presumed dead, but, 30 years later, a new album (Retribution Honky Tonkus) surfaces, and music lovers and family members are mystified. Is Terrifico singing from beyond the grave? Or has he been alive all this time?

This is the question that director Michael Mabbott purports to answer, and he does so with interviews with all of the players in Terrifico’s life. Most of these folk (Kristofferson, Haggard, Ronnie Hawkins, Phil Kaufman, Levon Helm) play themselves; they’re joined by a fictional cadre of Terrifico intimates, including his widow and dwarfish sidekick. While Terrifico himself appears only in grainy home-movie footage, he’s a charmer. The string-bean Murphy — previously the frontman for the mildly successful Halifax pop band the Superfriendz — proves himself a perfectly capable actor, and his voice makes the songs (co-written with Mabbott) the loveliest part of the picture.

Living in the limelight: Guy. Courtesy Alliance Atlantis.

The film, unfortunately, is not as charming as its lead. The mockumentary is a tough genre, and only one filmmaker, Christopher Guest, has ever truly mastered it. Guest himself disdains the term “mockumentary,” insisting that his films don’t mock anybody. Mabbott, however, does, and this makes the movie much less humourous than it thinks it is, and more crass. Sending up the country-rock genre is already akin to shooting prize turkeys at a country fair; taking potshots at midgets and trailer trash is shooting yourself in the comedic foot.

Part of Guest’s secret is to populate his ingenious films (Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show) with a crack team of comedians. Mabbott has populated his film with a crack team of real-life music legends, who are largely convincing (Haggard and Helm are particularly fun to watch). The other actors, unfortunately, are neither comedians nor music stars, and when placed alongside genuine people, their performances feel that much more artificial and self-conscious. The film is obviously scripted, but it often has the feel of ill-considered improvisation. Mabbott gets his satirical details right (from Terrifico’s Nudie-style outfits to the song lyrics), but he’s less accurate with the human beings.

Eventually, the film’s form becomes cloying, and you may find yourself wondering how soon you can leave, so you can go out and buy the soundtrack. A fictional film will affect you in very real ways, but a documentary about a fake person can be very unaffecting. What happened to Terrifico becomes increasingly less of a whodunit than a whocares.

The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico opens Nov. 11 in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.

Jason McBride is a Toronto-based writer and editor.