IMMEDIATE FAMILY (2023) - Mark Reviews Movies

Immediate Family, Magnolia Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 14, 2023

They're living the dream and loving every moment and memory of it. That's the sense one gets from the band at the center of Immediate Family, a group of studio musicians who have worked—often together—since the 1970s.

The initial quartet of Danny "Kootch" Kortchmar, Leland Sklar, Russ Kunkel, and Waddy Wachtel—who have since added Steve Postell, a fifth member who doesn't begrudge being a fifth wheel in the film, to their roster—has worked with artists such as James Taylor, Carole King, Phil Collins, Jackson Browne, and many, many more, like Neil Young, Stevie Nicks, Linda Ronstadt. On and on goes the list.

There's Don Henley, for example, in his post-Eagles career, as well as David Crosby and Lyle Lovett, and if this is kind of the gist of director Denny Tedesco's documentary (a sort-of follow-up to his 2008 documentary The Wrecking Crew, about a previous generation of similar musicians). It throws names, faces, and music at us as frequently as possible.

It's not irritating, though, because these four musicians genuinely seem thrilled beyond belief, not only to have possessed the luck they have had in their careers, but also to have those careers spotlighted as if they're more famous than they actually are. The group is well-known and respected among those aforementioned and other artists, to be sure, but their names are primarily known only to those who keep tabs of album liner notes.

Tedesco treats them like the stars they are in the insulated world of the music industry, and watching them play the songs they helped immortalize and listening to them talk about their experiences, this group definitely comes across as a bunch of people you wish had received more recognition than they have. It doesn't matter much to them, though. They can pay their bills, live in comfortable homes, and record and perform live with their best friends. What else matters?

Nothing else does, if the film is to be believed, and that's fine in this case. It's too much fun listening to these guys, now mostly in their 70s and joking with each other like teenagers, tell stories about their careers, explain their shared philosophy about being there exclusively for the wishes of the artists and producers for whom they work, and play riffs and beats we recognize. To complain about an absence of deeper substance or additional details of these guys' personal lives would be easy, but it wouldn't be fair. It's about the music, the personalities, the skill, and the anecdotes this group has developed and collected over the decades.

It's experience, as well as talent, that can't be faked, and there's nothing that seems fake about these musicians. Immediate Family portrays them as the genuine article of hard-working guys who have gotten everything and much more out of their careers than they could have dreamed—and, yes, formed a genuine family together as a nice but significant bonus in the deal.

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