When someone recommends a movie to be reviewed, it leaves me
in a sticky situation. I want to be
honest about the movie, but at the same time I do not want to say anything bad
about it. Throughout the first twenty
minutes of That Thing You Do I was
trying to think of various ways to write how I was feeling, and different, yet
sensitive, approaches to voicing the opinions that were building. It was not awful, or anywhere close to that,
it just was not anything that was connecting to me personally and I was not
really enjoying it.
The movie is about four young men from a small town in Pennsylvania who play their one original song at a talent show with a
replacement drummer. The drummer messes
up and speeds up the timing, and the band has no choice but to go with it. What ends up happening is the crowd falls in
love with what they hear, and the band (The Oneders, pronounced the
oh-knee-ders) slowly begins to develop some local fame. Before they know it, they have a manager who
lives out of his awesome trailer and are getting more and more gigs. It is only a short time before they are meeting
record label manager Mr. White (Tom Hanks) who takes the band higher and higher
as they start to ascend the billboard charts.
While I did not connect with the movie at first, it was the
energy and the personalities of the boys in the band that started to win me
over as their excitement and energy grew with their success. The movie, which was written and directed by
Hanks, accomplished its task of taking that raw buzz that was swirling around
them as they were fish out of water in a musical landscape that was constantly
changing before they were ever able to acclimatize themselves. The tale really is about lightning in a
bottle happening to people who are not in a space or prepared to deal with what
it would bring, and the movie never attempts to make them look anything but
mortal.
The casting in this film was done very well as the boys in
the band all physically looked great for the kind of band that would have been
promoted during that time, and they were all able to handle their roles
properly. It was nice seeing Steve Zahn,
who always makes me laugh in movies, in his role as the excitable and gambling
guitarist. Liv Tyler, who played the
girlfriend of the lead singer, plays her part in a sweet and innocent way that
brings a sincere heart to the boys that are caught up in the whirlwind. Tom Hanks does a great job of playing their
manager in a way that people may think of the typical studio executive, spewing
out honey coated sayings, but really just about the contract and the numbers at
the end of the day. As well, this movie
lets us see some talent in the early goings of their careers like Charlize
Theron and a very brief view of Bryan Cranston before he became famous for
cooking meth.
The real key to the movie is the song that the band
plays. Essentially, they are a
one-hit-wonder type of band on a meteoric rise and only really ever perform the
one song, so it had to be perfect. Adam
Schlesinger ended up getting nominated for an Oscar for the song That Thing You
Do, and it was ideal for this movie. It
really is amazing because you hear the song so many times throughout the film,
and it never gets to the point of getting on your nerves or getting old. There is so much believability to this tune
and the chances it would have enchanting audiences that really gives this film
wings,
It is far from a perfect film, and did have some elements
that I found to be a bit abrasive.
Jimmy, the lead singer, had a very controlling personality that you know
right from the beginning will lead to trouble down the road. His descent towards being a jerk happens fairly
sharply and seems rather jagged against the rest of the movie. There was nothing natural about how it
happened, and it really stood out to me as forcing the plot along instead of
being a part of it. Near the end of the
movie, character traits of other members of the band were all of a sudden
accelerated as well, which did nothing to help the flow of the film.
There are other things that I felt were miss-steps, many
that I could list, but ultimately they are all inconsequential. I had started writing a list of those things
as I watched it, but eventually I succumbed to the charm of the boys, and their
youthful enthusiasm. I don’t think this
movie was ever trying to be perfect, it was just trying to catch that
emotion. Well, it succeeded in its task
and won me over as I was tapping my feet along to this story of good natured
boys in a world they dreamed about but where not ready for or made fore.
Rating – 3 out of 4 stars
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