Stoned

Woolley has chosen a smart dynamic with which to investigate the death of Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones and, in the process, offer a mirror to the conflicting spirits of a period which he has explored before as a producer of such films as ‘Scandal’ and ‘Backbeat’. He pitches a fey, druggy Jones (Gregory) against Frank Thorogood (Considine), a straight-talking, conventional-thinking builder from the East End who Jones installs in his Sussex home to complete some repairs. Woolley delights in the ambiguity and tension of the pairing and employs woozy camerwork to evoke the period. There’s too much flashback, though – to Jones’ childhood and the early day of the Stones – for this conflict to take hold fully. And, fatally, Gregory doesn’t ever convince as such a complicated creature as Jones.