‘Sheryl’ Review: At SXSW, a Rousing Portrait of Sheryl Crow, A Good-Time Rock ‘n’ Roll Angel with Real Demons
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticThe pop-music world, in many ways, has only gotten angstier (it would be hard to imagine a mood-poet chanteuse like Billie Eilish commanding arenas 20 years ago).
But even back in the ’90s, Sheryl Crow was the kind of straight-up, middle-of-the-strike-zone, tasty-licks virtuoso of rock ‘n’ roll good times who seemed to have been put on earth to make people happy.She was at the forefront of a revolutionary wave of women in pop — the Lilith Fair generation, from Alanis Morrisette to Sarah McLachlan to Shawn Colin to Paula Cole — but she was also, you could argue, one of the last great rockers to work in the heart-on-the-sleeve, guitar-riffs-on-air tradition of Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty.
My favorite line of hers has always been the one that comes after “All I wanna do is have some fun” — namely, “Until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard.” With her starburst smile and electrifying vocal bravado (which was always rock with a drop of country, befitting someone who came from “the bootheel of Missouri”), Sheryl Crow was someone you could imagine standing against the rising L.A.
dawn after a night of partying. In her songs, Crow has always been a vibrant crafter of her own mythology, telling it like it is.
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