The screenplay by James Schamus is based on the memoir Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert and a Life by Elliot Tiber and Tom Monte.

Set in 1969, the film is based on the true story of Elliot Tiber, an aspiring Greenwich Village interior designer whose parents, Jake and Sonia, own the small dilapidated El Monaco Resort in White Lake, in the town of Bethel, New York.

Due to financial trouble, the motel may have to be closed, but Elliot pleads with the local bank not to foreclose on the mortgage and Sonia delivers a tirade about her struggles as a Russian refugee.

After another beautiful day at the festival, during which his friend the Vietnam veteran, Billy, appears to overcome his post-traumatic stress disorder, Elliot returns home to find his parents laughing and cavorting hysterically, having eaten Vilma's hash brownies.

As Elliot pays one last visit to the concert and looks out over the muddy desolation of the Yasgur farm, Lang rides up on horseback and they marvel at how despite the obstacles, the event was a success.

The site's consensus states: "Featuring numerous 60s-era clichés, but little of the musical magic that highlighted the famous festival, Taking Woodstock is a breezy but underwhelming portrayal.

A featured review is titled as: "Does a great job of focusing on the side story, rather than the obvious big picture", while stating "...they actually focus on the how this all came together, which was great, because not only was the story very entertaining, but it created this essence about the concert, that it was something far off in the distance that you would never see, and you only heard people talking about it..." Roger Ebert at the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "... Lee and writer James Schamus aren't making a historical pastiche.

This is a comedy with some sweet interludes and others that are cheerfully over the top, such as a nude theatrical troupe living in Elliot’s barn, and Vilma, his volunteer head of motel security, a transvestite ex-Marine played by Liev Schreiber.

"[11] Michael Phillips at the Chicago Tribune gave it 3 out 4 stars saying "Screenwriter James Schamus doesn’t do anything as stupid as shove Elliot back in the closet, but this is no Brokeback Catskills Mountain.

It’s a mosaic – many characters, drifting in and out of focus – stitching the story of how the peace-and-music bash fell together as it bounced in the haphazard planning stages from its originally scheduled Wallkill, New York, location to a cow pasture in White Lake.

"[13] Melissa Anderson in The Village Voice wrote: "Ang Lee’s facile Taking Woodstock proves that the decade is still prone to the laziest, wide-eyed oversimplifications ... little music from the concert itself is heard.

No one's asking for a song-by-song re-enactment of the concert, but Lee's refusal to focus even for a moment on the musical aspect of the festival starts to feel almost perverse, as if he's deliberately frustrating the audience's desire.

[17] Special features include an audio commentary with director Ang Lee and writer/producer James Schamus, deleted scenes, and a featurette: Peace, Love, and Cinema.