The latest slice of American history from director Ang Lee (The Ice Storm, Brokeback Mountain) is his gentlest and frothiest movie yet. It's based on the memoir of Elliot Tiber, a young gay Jewish man who in 1969 became a key player in the staging of the Woodstock rock festival in Bethel, New York, where his immigrant family's dilapidated motel became centre of operations. The festival itself takes a back seat, with the music mostly heard from a distance, as the film focuses on the cultural collisions taking place on the sidelines. Deadpan comedian Demetri Martin plays Elliot as an innocent abroad - he's wide-eyed and stoic as the hippies descend in their thousands upon the neighbouring dairy farm of laid-back Max Yasgur (Eugene Levy). Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton bring some much needed energy as Elliot's unenlightened, confused and initially disapproving parents. But their roles are played largely for easy laughs in James Schamus's script, which meanders in an echo of the freewheeling vibe of peace and love.

The story of Elliot Tiber and his family, who inadvertently played a pivotal role in making the famed Woodstock Music and Arts Festival into the happening that it was. When Elliot hears that a neighboring town has pulled the permit on a hippie music festival, he calls the producers thinking he could drum up some much-needed business for his parents' run-down motel. Three weeks later, half a million people are on their way to his neighbor’s farm in White Lake, New York, and Elliot finds himself swept up in a generation-defining experience that would change his life–and American culture–forever.