Musician Nick Cave is shown in a scene from the film "20,000 Days On Earth." THE CANADIAN PRESS/HOThe Canadian Press
This mock-doc captures a highly stylized day-in-the-life of Aussie punker-cum-stately-tunesmith Nick Cave, as he checks in with a psychotherapist, toils away in studio and snacks on pizza with his twin sons.
Through expository dialogue, Cave (who gets a writing credit, naturally) talks about reading Nabokov as a kid, volatile early gigs, addiction and his totalizing infatuation with his wife, presenting a glossy portrait of Cave as an elder statesman of punk. It's a rep he's earned, for sure.
But the film is so incessant on bolstering Cave's repute and noble struggle with the art of songwriting that it can't help but seem bloated and self-important. Sometimes seriousness should speak for itself.