Miles Ahead (2016)

When I was seven I would be awoken by my father at 6:00 am every week day morning for physical therapy.  The year was 1991 and at that time very little was truly available in the form of medical help for toddlers with cerebral palsy.  My father would stretch my hamstrings rigorously for 30 to 45 minutes each morning in an attempt to allow me to have better leg strength and a better walking gate.  I hated it with a passion.  The only portion of the activity that made it bearable was the ability to tune out the continuous pain with music.  This was when I was first introduced to Miles Davis and I began my introduction to his calming tones and chaotically genius sense of rhythmic timing through the album Kind of Blue.  My association with Davis’s discography continued long after I finished therapy sessions with my father but Don Cheadle’s directorial and screenplay debut effort Miles Ahead brought me back to those calm and chaotic compositions for which jazz and music overall was forever changed.

Miles Ahead focuses on Miles Davis (Don Cheadle) during the period where he was absent from the music scene and doing more coke than creating other forms of art.  He is disturbed one day by a columnist who wants to write his story.  Davis, a sharp and direct individual has no interest in seeing this reporter make money off of his talent and kicks him out for disturbing his sabbatical.  After Davis is locked out of his own house due to the reporter overpowering him Davis and the man go to Columbia Records.  Miles has been trying to get his hands on the $20,000 he is owed for some recordings he completed but the record company refuses to release the money until they hear and see the studio recording tape.  What follows after that involves said music being stolen and Miles trying to get it back so that it won’t be released without his approval.

Much like the music and Miles Davis as a person, the way this film is shot is inventive and complex.  There are sequences in which things are hazy and dozed because Miles is recovering from a scuffle which leads to a flashback where we learn more about the musicians past that concludes with another scuffle.  Miles is a cultural icon throughout all of the film and you never really see any moments covering before he became famous.  One thing audiences must appreciate is that seeing that specific aspect of his life doesn’t serve the story Cheadle is telling.  This film as a whole much like the Kind of Blue album which was the soundtrack of my childhood is about regret.  The questions arise for Miles what could I have done to be more inventive?  How could I have kept my marriage together?  How can I make the life I want for myself?  These are the questions Miles is always asking and while the audience is expecting answers Miles doesn’t care if they are answered.

The strongest aspect of this film is Cheadle as Davis.  He plays the musician as a controlling man consistently out of control trying to make peace with all the bad or difficult decisions that have come before as sacrifices for his art.  The best part of Cheadle playing Miles is that while we see that Miles doesn’t care about others we do see he cares about his music and what or who he has lost because of it.  It’s a clear acting choice of letting a broken man stay broken and allowing the audience to piece together his regrets and his triumphs not just in the world of music but the game of life.

The weakest aspect of the film is undoubtedly the performance by Ewan McGregor.  He adds nothing with his character and only serves in the story as the person whose eyes the audience is supposed to see the film through.  I argue this could have and should have been done without his character but I also the film would not have been greenlit without his involvement.  In my opinion, trusting audiences to follow and understand things from Davis’s perspective would have made the film a slightly richer more involving experience.

The problem with making small films like Miles Ahead is the film needs a distributor to be successful.  I have always praised Sony Pictures Classics has taken chances with films that may not necessarily be immediately palatable to audiences but I think studio intervention prevented the film from being great and instead it’s just really good.  Kind of Blue was a great record to begin my life with and this film is essential to anyone who loves music period.  See it as soon as you can.