Film Review

The Nashville Film Festival Day One: Rob Thomas: My Secret Record or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Enjoy the Biz

The Nashville Film Festival has grown over the years to become one of the top 20 festivals in the United States.  The folks behind the fest strive to set it apart from other festivals around the country by making it music-centric.  I'm happy to report though, that just because the festival is in "Country Music USA" that focusing on music for the fest doesn't just mean "country music".  This year the festival opened with the world premiere of My Secret Record or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Enjoy the Biz, a documentary feature about the making of singer/songwriter and front man to popular rock band Matchbox Twenty Rob Thomas' first solo CD, which shot to number one right away back in 2005.

The film follows Rob through the writing and recording process and the creation of a marketing image for the CD and the work that went into selling the music.  During the making of the CD Rob and those closest too him knew he was making fantastic music but the confidence in the new CD's success wasn't rock solid.  There was a major shake up at Rob's label and most of the people he had worked with for the previous ten years on Matchbox Twenty albums were now gone.  So, before Rob could consider selling his solo music to the public he had to sell it to the label.  The film shows Rob struggling to deal with the label and try to fulfill their expectations without selling himself out.  Rob was unwilling to preview the music for label execs for the majority of the recording period which not surprisingly caused friction.

I loved being a fly on the wall during the marketing meetings about Rob and seeing the plan being formulated on how the album would be sold to the masses.  Simple things, all the way down to Rob changing his haircut made major ripples within the marketing division of the record label.  I do play guitar, so I really appreciated seeing all the work that was put into the album and all the great musicians Rob brought in to contribute but surprisingly all of the behind the scenes struggles that were going on at the label, and everything Rob had to do after the recording was done was just as fascinating.  For Thomas fans this movie is a no brainer, but anyone into any kind of music can also appreciate seeing how the album comes together. 

Being a documentary filmmaker myself I'm kind of picky about focus and perspective.  The worst misstep a documentary filmmaker can do in my opinion is to shift attention from the subject to the filmmaker.  Michael Moore and a few others do this to an extreme degree by starring in their films regardless of their real connection to the subject, other than wanting to do a movie about it.  More common is filmmakers not asking questions properly for editing and being forced to put their own voices in the film.  This really irritates me because with a bit of creative editing or proper Q&A the filmmaker can stay invisible making the subject of the film the total focus.  A few times in this film we do hear the filmmaker asking questions and having conversation with Rob.  As much as I don't like to see that happen in docs I have to say that in this film it leads to one of the best comedic breaks in the film.  At one point where the label ahs asked Rob to do something he really doesn't want to do the filmmakers asks him 'well, how far are you willing to go?"  His answer is "all the way to fuck off."  I think even though I hate when this happens if I'd have shot that scene I probably would have went ahead and included it too.  Rob was ticked at the time but he can probably look at it and laugh now, I hope.

The one thing I feel that's missing, that would have made the film have even more mainstream appeal is that true character study of Rob and what brought him to the place he's at now.  Had the filmmaker done a bit of a bio on Rob the film would still be attached to the making of the particular album but it would also stand alone as just a movie about Rob as well.  I'd like to know what brought Rob to music, who he calls his influences, and what happened with Matchbox Twenty.  We do learn just a little about his wife's illness but it feels out of place in the film because we don't get much personal information about Rob outside of his work on the album.  These kinds of things could have easily been added into the film without extended the running time too much by simple cutting back the live performances just a bit.

At any rate My Secret Record does many things right, it sells Rob's music and proves him as a serious writer and musician and not just a pop star, it also offers a real behind the scenes view of the process of not only making a record but of working with the record label and getting the record released.  Honestly I was never a Matchbox Twenty fan, but after seeing this film I'm planning to check out Rob's solo record, and if that happens to everyone who sees the film but doesn't know Rob's music then the film does its job.  The trick is to get people who aren't Thomas fans to give the film a shot.

Overall Review 8/10

-Stephen Lackey