There’s a certain rowdy spirit to Stephen Gyllenhaal’s “Grassroots,” now playing in limited release, that gives the fact-based comedy-drama a surprising vitality for a movie that seems so schematic.

Based on a true story, the film stars Jason Biggs as a journalist named Phil Campbell, who is fired from his job as a reporter for an alternative weekly in Seattle during the summer of 2001. He lives with his girlfriend Emily (Lauren Ambrose) in a house with several other people and he’s got few prospects – until he gets a call from a pal named Grant Cogswell (Joel David Moore). (More…)