Toronto – I’ll be the first to confess, I was not sure what was the song that made James Blunt famous..at first, I thought it was ‘Your body is a wonderland’, then I thought it was the song from the movie Closer..finally I found out it was ‘You’re Beautiful’. Then to my surprise, I found out they were all different singers. What a revelation! The film “Till You’re Told To Stop” is a documentary about the meteoric rise of the British singer songwriter, from his early days as a struggling musician to 2007, when he was on top of the world, winning Grammys and Brit Awards and playing to sold out shows in arenas all around the world.
One thing I’ve learned from this documentary is that if I was ever to start a band, I should always carry a video camera around, in case I get famous. The footage in this documentary is very extensive and follows James Blunt for every step. There are a lot of shots of traveling, radio station visits, concerts, goofing off and everything you’d expect from a documentary of this kind. Interviews with band members, managers, record labels and other music types as well. James Blunt fans will definitely be pleased.
My main problem with the documentary is this: it isn’t really interesting. The documentary basically covers three years (a short time for a musician). The one interesting thing is how fast James Blunt went from obscurity to world domination. That is about it. It doesn’t help that James Blunt seems like a really nice guy. The documentary goes along with him treating everyone nice – band members, roadies, radio station people, interviewers, everyone. There is no scandal, no drugs, no groupies and not even that much alcohol. He barely swears, and basically, the movie just confirms what you probably know already – the dude is an alright guy. That doesn’t make it a good film though.
My other primary complain is the music. As a person who has only heard his songs on occasion, it is quite a task to be bludgeoned with his music for 87 minutes straight. Given his musical range does not varied much from the acoustic-vh1-singer songwriter type, to be constantly barraged with it over an hour and a half is quite a load to handle for anyone. By the end of the film, I had to mute the concert footage because I could only handle so much. Let this be advice to James Blunt fans dragging their significant others to this documentary … don’t do it. It is too much for one to handle, no matter how much you like to hear “You’re Beautiful”
Overall, I think this film is probably appealing to James Blunt fans only (and they will looooove this movie). The documentary does not really go into the process of how he made music, nor does it have any scandalous bits in it to keep the casual fan interest, also, unlike I, they can’t mute James Blunt music when it overwhelms them.
Casual Fans: 
James Blunt Fans: 
This movie plays on Jun 20 at 8:15 at NFB Theatres
