You expect a review of a movie like The Future is Unwritten, veteran music movie director Julien Temple's (The Filth and the Fury) examination of the life of Joe Strummer, the legendary leader of The Clash, to advise fans of the band in question to see the documentary about them. Forget that. If you've never heard of The Clash, if you hate The Clash, if you aren't interested in The Clash at all, or if you're the biggest fan in the world, you will still be moved by The Future is Unwritten. The last few years have provided a string of great music documentaries like Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man and Dave Chappelle's Block Party but Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten is more than a concert film and more than a music biopic. Like the band it chronicles, The Clash, it's a unique mix of styles that works together to make one of the more enjoyable movie experiences of the year. You'll learn not just about Joe Strummer, but possibly even about yourself. That may sound like an exaggeration, but who thought a punk band like The Clash could change the face of music? The Future is Unwritten won't change the face of movies, but it will definitely brighten your day.

Joe Strummer grew up a traveler. His father was a diplomat, which forced the family to live in a different country every few years. It's never explicitly stated in the film (one of many brilliant choices by Temple is to allow you to connect those dots) but those early, formative years would define Joe Strummer and The Clash. Not only did it allow Strummer to meld so many different styles (The Clash could do punk, reggae, and even Indian music), but it made him restless. Nothing was ever good enough for too long and when things got really good with The Clash, they almost knew it had to implode. Nothing lasts forever because the future is unwritten. And it took Strummer decades to figure out that the fact that the future is so uncertain isn't a bad thing. It allows you to live in the moment and enjoy what you have today. His arc from a struggling musician so poor that he was squatting in an abandoned house to the leader of one of the most influential bands of all time to his self-imposed exile after the breakup of The Clash is the kind of thing that great fiction is made of. But it's all true.

It's such a strong story that Temple could have just defined the history of Strummer in a straightforward style, but that wouldn't have been appropriate for The Clash. So, he mixes it up, using interview footage with Strummer and a recording of his radio program as audio and showing new interviews with friends, family, and people influenced him around a campfire. Strummer used to hold campfires, where friends would play all kinds of styles of music. It was what he loved about music, its ability to bring people together around something like a campfire. So Temple does the same, getting such celebrities as Bono, Johnny Depp, Matt Dillon, John Cusack, Flea, and even Martin Scorsese to sit down at the campfire and talk Strummer. You'll feel like you're at an amazing eulogy, where friends and family don't mourn the loss of their loved one but tell stories about his life. The future may be unwritten, but yours should include a little documentary about The Clash.