My Life as a Rolling Stone

What’s striking about this surprisingly satisfying docuseries (currently running on Epix) whose dubious conceit is devoting a full episode to each of the group’s four tenured members, is how effectively it shows the Stones’ magic as being fully about the sum of its parts.

A buzzy, zippy, thoughtful feast of a film with a well-selected collection of tributes and observations.

"My Life As a Rolling Stone" fosters a degree of sympathy for these devils, but mostly, a sense of appreciation for decades of a level of rock wizardry that, with apologies to the song, needs no introduction.

My Life as a Rolling Stone is thorough and skilfully assembled – with enthusiastic narration by Sienna Miller. Yet, while adding to the great bonfire of Rolling Stones hagiographies, it ultimately does little to deepen our understanding of a band who remade rock’n’roll in their own image.

If you’re burnt out on rock-doc tropes, this is not the best start. ... If you know this band’s lore and a bit about the Glimmer Twin’s yin-yang songwriting partnership, it covers a lot of well-worn territory, save for the odd choice moment. ... Luckily, the episodes on the other Stones fare better, arguably because their tales aren’t as steeped in legend.

The episodes focusing on second guitarist Ronnie (the “new kid,” in the band for nearly half a century) and Charlie, the drummer, [are] the more immediately interesting episodes. ... The historical highlights are here — drug bust at Keith’s house, Hyde Park ‘69, Altamont, tax exile, New York flatbed truck performance, swerve into disco — but as onstage, examination of the band’s catalog pretty much ends in the the mid-‘70s.

The result is a plod – a hagiographic plod. We gather neither moss nor insight as we roll past the usual way stations in the Stones’ career.