Photo Courtesy Sundance Film Festival

As a memorial to intrepid experimental filmmaker Derek Jarman, Isaac Julien's Derek paints with great ease the vision of an artist whose mysteries were explored through his nonconformist creations. As a biopic meant for audience with Jarman fans and unfamiliars alike, however, Derek stumbles in its narrative, failing to gain enough traction to land a spot as memorable.

Composed in the fashion of a platonic love letter, voice-over by Tilda Swinton introduces Jarman's world, explaining in lyrical phrases the social and philosophical notions that served as influence for her friend and collaborator's work. In crisp shots of gritty solitude, too often unchecked in their intent to surface empathy, Swinton wanders in a world no longer accustomed to the creative subversion that Jarman's work represents. Although tender, the voice-over ultimately does little to explore Swinton and Jarman's friendship. It's a love song without the chord of emotional resonance.

Cuts between Swinton segments, childhood footage, snippets of film reel and interview clips with Jarman blend together so fluidly that they tug the unconscious, yet there's a grounding linearity to the film's theme of social justice and defiance. A gay man in a closeted society, Jarman used his art to bridge the gaps in acceptance, challenging at every turn the paradigms of prejudice. As Derek traces along the path of Jarman's filmography, the abstraction of his art anchors that troubled social reality.

While Julien succeeds in capturing Jarman and preventing his work from suffering the evaporation of memory, he's also made a traditional film of unconventional material, missing that point that Jarman always hit.