It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley (2025): Almost A Superstar

 By Len Weiler

This is the first of three movie reviews I hope to post this week.  The other two reviews will be of two new movies in current release: Superman a surprisingly good remake about the caped crusader, and The Naked Gun a surprisingly funny remake of the classic, very silly comedy  The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad from 1988. Today's review is of  It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley, a new documentary film by Amy Berg about the musician Jeff Buckley - opening in select theaters on August 8. 

Buckley, who died in 1997, was admired as a remarkably gifted singer, as well as for his lyrically imaginative, emotionally evocative songwriting. He is, however, best known today for his terrific rendition of the Leonard Cohen song Hallelujah.  Cohen’s original recording of Hallelujah was released in 1984 – without making a ripple. Seven years later in 1991, John Cale recorded his cover of the song, which received some favorable attention. Buckley’s version - only the second cover of the song - was included on his album Grace in 1994; while it did not become a megahit during his lifetime, it is now generally considered the benchmark rendition of Hallelujah and frequently cited as one of the greatest recorded tracks of all time. (There are now well over three hundred cover versions of the song, so your opinion about the absolute best one might differ – but if you listen or re-listen to Buckley’s performance [here’s a link], I doubt it.)  But I digress.

Those who knew Jeff Buckley and many of those who heard him in the mid-90s thought he was going to be a superstar in the pantheon of the greatest singer songwriters of all time. But he only completed the one album, Grace, issued in 1994. He was in the process of. recording a second album at the time of his premature death. He was just thirty years old.

I knew little about Jeff Buckley, other than Hallelujah, before watching It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley. I knew he was the son of another singer-songwriter, Tim Buckley, whom I had seen at a nightclub in 1969 or 1970 and that I liked a lot at the time. Jeff looked a lot like his dad, and his voice was somewhat similar, but finer. He never really knew Tim, and bristled at any suggestion that his music could or should be compared with his father’s. 

It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley reveals Jeff as a gifted, talented young man with a sensitive and troubled soul and an interesting back story. One of the surprises for me was how varied his style was - and how so much of his material is quite different from Hallelujah.  The film motivated me to delve into his album, Grace, which is quite impressive, definitely worth exploring.  Upon its release, the album got mixed reviews, ranging from near ecstatic to outright pans, although most were somewhere between those extremes. Initially, it did not sell at all well, but Buckley and his band toured extensively for nearly two years to promote it, and by the time of Jeff’s death 175,000 copies had been sold. Subsequently, acclaim for the work grew so that by 2011 total worldwide sales passed 2 million.

 

The documentary was definitely a passion project for director Amy Berg, whose previous works include the music documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue ((2015) about Janis Joplin.  Buckley’s story is interesting and tragic. The music in the film is plentiful, often lovely and wonderful, and works both to give us a sense of things and to familiarize us with what Buckley was actually doing. Unfortunately, we rarely get the opportunity to experience the complete performance of a song, only excerpts (a frequent complaint I have with such films). Berg’s storytelling is a bit of a jumble too. Part of the problem seems to be that the filmmaker didn’t have enough archival film or video footage, other than clips of performances, that could advance the story, so to fill in the details she relies a lot on still photographs (Ken Burns style) and newly recorded interviews with a few people who actually knew Jeff well – primarily his mother Mary Guibert, his two long-term romantic partners Rebecca Moore and Joan Wasser, and a band member, Michael Tighe. Other talking heads include admiring musicians and members of his management team. Here and there, Berg inserts animated line drawings to illustrate events these witnesses are describing – a tactic that feels too lighthearted for the material.

The ending of the film is quite touching, because of Buckley’s tragic death, obviously. But also because of the deep affection for Jeff evinced so many years after the event by the three women in his life as they recall their reactions. If Jeff’s last voicemail message to his mom doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, that’s your problem.

  

So, the movie is something of a mixed bag. The man and the story at the center of It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley deserves an A.  Stylistically, the film probably rates a B.  If you are a fan of Jeff Buckley, it is a Must-See movie.  For everyone else, it is – as I’ve said – an interesting film and also, for any one into popular music, a worthwhile one despite its flaws. 

1 hour 46 minutes

Grade: B+

The film opens in select theaters nationwide on August 8, 2025. In the SF Bay Area, that includes in SF: the Roxie Theater, the AMC Metreon 16 and the 4 Star Theater; in Berkeley at the Rialto Cinemas Elmwood.  It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley is produced in part by HBO Films and is expected to begin streaming on HBO/HBO Max approximately in January.