Alex Ross Perry’s ‘Pavements’ is a Dizzying, Delightful Improvement on the Rock Doc

“If you want to sound smart or cool, you talk about Pavement.” So says a pseudo-starstruck Noah Baumbach near the end of Alex Ross Perry’s giddy and manic “Pavements,” which announces its subject, the 1990s indie sensation Pavement, as “The World’s Most Important and Influential Band.” Perry’s tongue-in-cheek, feature-length fanzine deploys a dizzying, satisfying blend of storytelling strategies to tickle that bold assertion, matching Pavement’s own cockeyed artistic sensibilities in delivering a final product that’s delightfully elusive, impossible to pin down. To fully submit to the film’s charms requires fighting the urge to determine what’s fake (Baumbach?) and instead surrender to a maze of unapologetic navel-gazing and superfan one-upmanship. And so this thorough, whacky passion project ends up less of a Pavement history lesson than a testament to Perry (“Her Smell”) and his fellow slanted, enchanted diehard supporters. 

The Baumbach quote is a cheeky tip-off to the sentiment Perry both perpetuates and bats away. The film functions as a primer for the uninitiated, but also a greatest hits compilation for Pavement heads. Much of the archival footage from MTV, The Tonight Show, and Pavement’s infamous mud-caked set at Lollapalooza might be familiar, if not only to the heads contingent, then indirectly to the general viewer who has seen an episode of VH1’s “Behind the Music” or any number of systematic rock group documentaries. Perry gets that we get the joke and that we’re expecting the expected, so while he offers out the predictable, easy-watching fare—replete with period-specific name-checking (Nirvana, Jay Leno) and quippy talking-heads commentary (“Stockton is the Cleveland of California”)— “Pavements” can’t tell the same old story in the same old way because Pavement was- is!—far too important and influential. 

Perry Cares About this Band

At least that’s Perry’s thesis. Leading the audience through a convoluted web of half-truths and gimmickry, “Pavements” only sounds farcical and irreverent. But the execution is so deft and absorbing that the emotional range tightens from the widest extremes of silly and obsequious to gentle mocking and full-throated admiration. Perry hasn’t directed a feature film since the blistering, brilliant riot grrrl rock-saga “Her Smell,” and I’ve felt his work is often mischaracterized and mislabeled using critical language that serves to knock his profoundly humane artistry down a peg. The dialogue is chatty and acerbic, the people are sardonic or miserable, and so projecting those facile descriptions forward to “Pavements” might suggest a jester behind the camera who’s smarter and cooler than all of us. And yet, Perry cares so much about this band that he wouldn’t dare settle for a bland 128-minute victory-lap treatment. 

True, “Pavements” is engrossing and rich as a documentary, but the film is ultimately the sum of Perry’s multi-year efforts to cement Pavement’s spot in a canon of his own design. In 2022, “Slanted! Enchanted! A Pavement Musical”—which Perry wrote and directed—played for two nights in Manhattan. (Rolling Stone cheered that “it should run forever.”) That same year, while Pavement launched a successful, celebrated reunion tour, “Pavements 1933-2022: A Pavement Museum” exhibited in the same Tribeca building where Matador Records, Pavement’s long-time label, reportedly launched. Perry also wrote and directed a fictionalized biopic (“Range Life”), portions of which are—in addition to the play—excerpted in “Pavements.” The humor is loving, the goofing-off earned and mostly self-aware, such as when Joe Keery (“Stranger Things”)—preparing to portray Pavement’s lead singer Stephen Malkmus—tells Perry that his gold standard for rock biopics is “Bohemian Rhapsody.” 

A Scrapbook in Motion

It’s unclear, at times, who is in on the joke, or what the joke actually is, but capturing and pigeonholing the “Pavements” mood is as essential to enjoying the film as a bandmate’s toenail (shown on display at the museum) is to appreciating the band’s music. Malkmus, the undisputed leader, is chronically unable to mince words both in flashback sequences and present-day interviews when confronted with the usual boring questions about legacy or regrets. Depicted as neither a ‘90s rock renegade nor a regret-laden diva, Malkmus represents the complicated core of the band while Perry personifies Pavement’s ardent following, an acolyte allergic to writing a boilerplate (or concise) love letter. Thanks to Perry’s restless formal curiosity, the skillful editing of frequent collaborator Robert Greene, “Pavements” is a scrapbook in motion, an energetic jam session that lives and breathes while gleefully slinging mud right back at a blissfully ignorant audience.

“Pavements,” a Utopia release, is screening at New York’s Film Forum until June 12, and it continues rolling out to a number of cities and locations throughout June.