Ang Lee’s “Taking Woodstock” is a funny, entertaining movie, but it has a few major faults, such as not actually showing the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival.

The year is 1969. Elliot Tiber, played by comedian Demetri Martin in his first major movie role, is a down-on-his-luck, still-in-the-closet interior designer. He moves back in with his parents, the Teichbergs, to help run their motel for the summer on White Lake in Bethel, New York. He is also the recently elected president of the local Chamber of Commerce. Upon learning that Woodstock has been cancelled in nearby Wallkill, he calls the producer of the festival, seeing if he can do anything with a permit he has for a local art festival. A deal is made with local farmer Max Yasgur, played by Eugene Levy, to use his farm for the event. Three weeks later, nearly a half-million hippies descend on the Catskills Mountains of New York for the concert.

That sounds like a great plot for a movie. The creation of Woodstock, a generation-defining event, should make an excellent film. However, there’s hardly any conflict. Elliot Tiber is gay, and won’t come out to his parents, but nothing comes of it. When inspectors find dozens of code violations that threaten to shut down the whole event, it’s dealt with in a single sentence.

The movie is based on a real event that happened with little to no conflict, something that unfortunately translates into a fairly dull story. However, there’s something even more unforgivable than the lackluster plot: the soundtrack. For a movie about Woodstock, where is the music? There are hippie-era songs, but nothing that actually came out of Woodstock, no Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, or any other big name from the festival. How can you have a movie about a national cultural and musical turning point, a victory for peace and the definition of the musical generation, and not actually include its music?

Despite these complaints the movie shines in other ways. Lee’s direction of the characters makes them memorable, from Billy, played by Emile Hirsch, a Posttraumatic Stress Disorder-addled Vietnam veteran; Vilma, played by Liev Schreiber, the cross-dressing head of security; a troupe of talentless theater actors; and Elliot’s parents, Russian Jewish immigrants whose motel is going into foreclosure. These characters are what make the movie watchable. Lee makes excellent use of splitting the screen into smaller segments, each showing something different, to show the chaos of creating the massive concert.

Although it started to feel too long near the end, the movie was entertaining. The sight gags, such as when a planner walks onto what he thinks is a field only to fall into a swamp, and witty dialogue make the movie more comedic than expected.

In the end, it was a good movie. I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars, mostly for the fact that there is no Woodstock music. If you like hippies or Woodstock, go see the movie. However, be warned: there’s full frontal nudity of both genders that might leave the viewer mentally scarred.

Cole Mayer can be reached at [email protected]