Although this film is very much intended to be based of off the "Final Days" of Nirvana front-man Kurt Cobain, its strengths lie in the haunting and relentless misery of protagonist Blake.The fact that Blake is intended to be a pretty direct allegory for Cobain is largely irrelevant to the mood and feel of the film. You could go into this film not even knowing who Cobain was and it wouldn't change your experience with it. Blake is a very depressed musician on his last legs who has pretty much entirely given up on life. That's all you really need to know. Although there are references to Cobain life and death, they feel mostly superfluous and don't really add anything to the film. Final Day is ultimately a film successful in its understanding and presentation of depression and isolation but not as a film depicting the last days of Kurt Cobain. You will be disappointed if you go into this film expecting a good Cobain/Nirvana film.

Rock star resembling Kurt Cobain lurches around his secluded home in the woods, barely interacting with the other young people in the house and fooling around with a shotgun. Writer-director Gus Van Sant examines downtrodden lives (messed-up people who often live in crummy squalor) from such a distance that the bleak surroundings--such as the decaying mansion here--practically look sterile, untouched. This is nothing more than an exercise in camera style, with the technique itself becoming tiresome before the 30-minute mark. In the lead, Michael Pitt, morose and mumbling, has the perfect Cobain coif, yet he is given no actual character to play, any semblance of a screenplay being non-existent. This is the work of a filmmaker interested in bleak, dead-end scenarios--but one without the filmmaking passion to ferret out the questions behind all the hopelessness. NO STARS from ****

It is ironic that in an era of high-speed communications and hyper-dimensional physics that the children of these creations would choose to express their exacerbations in a primal mumble of modern madness, while sleepwalking through their nightmare.The Director's low-key, laid back, and standoff style are appropriate, with little dialog using sound and fluid composition to facilitate the ethereal essence of the environment.A parallel but not a specific profile, the similarities to Nirvana's Kurt Cobain are a worthwhile comparison. Entering the mind and the world of a tortured and talented person is not going to be entertaining, but it is a different, difficult detour to a road to nowhere. It is a vast, expansive and mostly empty space, an unknowable territory and it smells like spiritual suicide.

I really was hoping for some real story here, given that while the writer was merely reflecting on Cobain's last days, not sure if there was a copyright issue here, or whatever. But a shame for Nirvana fans who would want more, I think.Even so there are a few good scenes here, then sense of a life of a rock star Blake, used and abused, reached the summit, and then sees the precipice he is on...turns to addiction.Any escape. The forests and waterfalls are cavernous, lush and yet still foreboding. He lives in a stone castle formerly owned by a Rockefeller, it is unheated and unlivable, but narcotics insulate this. It doesn't matter, except to the few groupies who hang out, party, and take money from Blake when they can.Aimless friends include users, hangers on and some sad scene at the end where the friends bail...they see what will happen, still run and abandon the person.I had seen the Nick Broomfield documentary recently on Current TV; it is interesting and gives you a sense of what happened. There really were so many factors going on, although I would agree that while his life was spiraling there were many users, although Courtney Love does not seem to bear the blame, even though a career P.I. in Hollywood seems to think she was involved.Anytime an artist is lost it becomes a circus today, sadly. Still hope and wish Love or her handlers would allow more information about the biography of the man, Cobain, to come out. People are interested, there is a very interesting and sad story here. Recommended for anyone not just curious about the story , but also in the Seattle music underground, and also anyone who has cared about a person or fried and seen addiction and what it can destroy will be interested in this film.It is truly sad that Cobain a gifted artist writer and musician is gone....something could have been done, but the money became a harbinger of death...as fame and success many times can. 8/10.