Dir:

Lenny Abrahamson

With: Michael Fassbender, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Domhnall Gleeson

Runtime: 95 minutes

EVERY generation that prays to the rock gods needs a Spinal Tap, a movie that sings of the joyful insanity of pouring one's youthful dreams into a band of scraggy musicians. Not one has managed it - until now.

Being the tale of an office drone who runs away to join the circus-like existence of an avante garde band, Frank is a long way from the leopard-print leggings and dry ice of Rob Reiner's 1984 classic, but its heart is in the same, right, place.

Lenny Abrahamson's comedy-drama is Spinal Tap reimagined by early Adrian Mole, a gentle, funny and surprising picture. It matters little if you have never heard of the title character, and that the music is enough to make the ears bleed. For all its hipster credentials, Frank offers the old-fashioned pleasure of an engaging tale well told.

The screenplay by Jon Ronson and Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) has two heroes. The first is Jon (see a connection if you will), played by Domhnall Gleeson. The son of Brendan has been rapidly making a name for himself as quite the best thing in any picture he appears in, from About Time to Anna Karenina by way of playing Bill Weasley in Harry Potter. Here, cinema's hottest red-head (he is also in the new Star Wars) takes a lead role, infusing the picture from the off with a shaggy charm.

Jon is a frustrated songwriter whose ambition far exceeds his talent. Shuffling through the dreary seaside down where he lives, he sees a new band, the Soronprfbs, is playing locally. As the unpronounceable name hints, audience-friendly they are not.

As chance would have it, Jon gets to play keyboards for them, and encounters the lead singer, the legendary Frank, a small, delicate man in a large, painted, papier mache head. If you are of a certain vintage, the character will be recognisable as Frank Sidebottom, the comic and musical creation of the late Chris Sievey, in whose band Ronson once played.

Frank, played by Oscar-nominated Michael Fassbender no less, never takes the head off. He clings to his persona as an enigmatic genius like a lifebelt, and is supported in this by bandmates, including the fiercely protective Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and the friendlier Don (Scoot McNairy). To Clara's obvious and unrelenting fury, there is something about Jon that Frank likes, and when the ordinary bod is invited to join the band on their album-writing break in the Irish countryside, she makes it her mission to make his life miserable and show him the difference between mere mortals and creative titans.

The dysfunctional little family duly go wild in the country, searching for that elusive tune or lyric that is simply perfect.

Jon, meanwhile, being of a more practical bent, thinks the band deserves a wider exposure. If he cannot be Frank or Clara, then he will manage them, all the way to an American musical festival. Frank, fragile and vulnerable, the ultimate rock innocent, is about to meet the world whether he wants to or not.

Abrahamson, the Irish helmer of the well-regarded school drama What Richard Did, mines more laughs than you might imagine from the material. It is all about the vibe, which you will either love or hate. Stick with it, though, and you could be pleasantly intrigued.

While Frank might seem off-puttingly trendy, the quality of the filmmaking and performances are such that it should appeal to a wider audience. Gleeson, Gyllenhaal and Fassbender turn their characters into people to care about, while the story aims to be more than just another tale of a rock 'n' roll band hitting the road. This is a strange, out-of-the-ordinary film, but always in a good way.

To paraphrase Dean Martin, speaking about another Frank, it is Frank's weird world, and for a while it is a pleasure to live in it.

Glasgow Film Theatre and Cineworld, Renfrew Street; Cameo, Edinburgh; Vue Edinburgh Omni; Dundee Contemporary Arts; Macrobert, Stirling; Cineworld Aberdeen Union Square; Cineworld, Edinburgh.