Andy Serkis stars as singer/songwriter Ian Dury in director Mat Whitecross's engaging but overly frenetic biopic. Using the framework of a live gig by Dury and the Blockheads, an abstract portrait of the post-punk poet unfolds. There are flashbacks to his polio-stricken childhood, and the relationships with those he loved: his wife (Olivia Williams), girlfriend (Naomie Harris) and son (Bill Milner). But the fantastical presentation - incorporating animation, newsreels and clips from Spartacus - and music video-style fast-cutting soon get tedious. And they can't disguise the fact that this busy mythologising hews close to the usual price-of-fame biographical clichés, as friends and family become casualties of Dury's selfish creative drives. But the top-notch performances give viewers Reasons to Be Cheerful - Milner is terrific and Serkis is the tour de force at the film's centre, capturing the charisma that made the destructively complex Dury the "housewives' favourite" punk rocker.

A biography of Ian Dury, who was stricken with polio at a young age and defied expectations by becoming one of the founders of the punk-rock scene in Britain in the 1970s.