The full story of the legendary British rock group The Kinks is to be told on the big screen for the first time by Julien Temple, the director of infamous Sex Pistols mockumentary The Great Rock and Roll Swindle, reports Screen Daily.
Titled You Really Got Me after the band’s best known song, the biopic will feature Clouds of Sils Maria’s Johnny Flynn and Pride’s George Mackay as Ray and Dave Davies, the original squabbling sibling bandleaders. Iconic TV screenwriting duo Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, known for Porridge, The Likely Lads and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, will work on the script.
Crucially, producers have obtained the rights to all of The Kinks’ best known songs and the Davies themselves are to work on the soundtrack. Fittingly for a film about one of the swinging 60s’ most infamous brotherly partnerships, Temple is also keeping the supporting cast within the family: his daughter Juno Temple will play Ray’s former wife, Raza, who also sang on some of their best known tracks.
“This is an exciting chance to tell The Kinks story in a visceral and real way,” Temple told Screen. “The lyrics of The Kinks have always been fascinating to me and there is an amazing human story here as well which has yet to be captured on film”.
Both Flynn and Mackay are accomplished musicians, with the former a singer-songwriter and the latter having played the lead in the 2013 musical Sunshine on Leith, based on the songs of The Proclaimers. Added Temple: “It’s not easy to find British leading men who can deliver the kind of musically compelling performances we need and we have those in Johnny and George.”
Film-makers have also secured the rights to both brothers’ autobiographies. Temple himself directed the 2010 television documentary Ray Davies: Imaginary Man as part of BBC 4’s Imagine series, as well as a followup piece on Dave for the same Channel, 2011’s Dave Davies: Kinkdom Come.
The film has been a long-term passion of veteran British producer Jeremy Thomas, known for Bernardo Bertolucci’s Oscar-winning The Last Emperor, The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, and more recent critically-acclaimed films such as David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method and Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive. He told Screen: “This is the story of the brothers growing up and the group’s later disbanding. They are the Cain and Abel of rock but their story isn’t known as well as it should be.”
You Really Got Me is being touted to investors at the current Cannes film festival, where Thomas is a regular visitor.
