Joyous Optimism

Rating: 7/10 (10 June 2010)

That Thing You Do!" was Tom Hanks' first, and to date only, film as writer and director. It is set in the summer of 1964 and tells the story of the rise and fall of a rock band. (Hanks is known for his love of classic rock). The four young men involved bear certain similarities to The Beatles, although they are not from Liverpool but from Erie, Pennsylvania. The title is also that of the group's first hit single, although for some reason the film title is spelt with and the record title without an exclamation mark.
The four are Jimmy Mattingly, Lenny Haise, Guy Patterson and "T. B. Player"- we never learn his real name; those initials simply stand for The Bass Player. (The surnames "Haise" and "Mattingly" are references to the film "Apollo XIII" in which Hanks also starred; Fred Haise was one of the astronauts on Apollo XIII, and Ken Mattingly should have flown on the mission but had to withdraw through illness). Guy, the drummer, is a late replacement for the original drummer who is injured in a road accident. The four together form a group called "The Oneders", pronounced "The Wonders" but frequently mispronounced as the "oh-NEE-ders". The choice of name was based on the theory that all successful groups, like The Beatles, should have a deliberate misspelling in their name. (To judge from The Byrds, The Monkees and Led Zeppelin, there might be something in this theory).
The Oneders achieve quick success. They win a local talent show, release a single of "That Thing You Do", start getting paying gigs and are eventually signed up by a major record company named Play-Tone Records. The Wonders (by now the spelling of their name has been simplified) tour state fairs across the Midwest and their record enters the Billboard Top 100. When the song enters the Top 10, Play-Tone arrange for the group to appear on a prime-time variety show on national television.
Then it all goes wrong. It generally does. It is something of a cliché in films about fictitious showbiz acts that early success has to be paid for in later failure or disillusionment. A good example is the 1970s British film "Stardust" about a rock idol who ends up an unhappy, drug-addicted recluse. The Wonders do not fall from grace in quite such a spectacular fashion but a series of disagreements lead to their splitting up soon after their television debut; their choice of name proves to have been sadly prophetic as they end up as no more than one-hit wonders. A written epilogue tells us what became of the four members in later years. (This device was possibly borrowed from "American Graffiti", another film about young men of this period).
The film's great strength is the way in which it conjures up the spirit of the sixties and the joyous optimism of the popular music of the period. Films about pop music do not always achieve this- The Stray Cats, the fictitious band in "Stardust", might be based upon The Beatles but certainly don't sound like them and the music provided for them to play is generally dull and lacklustre. The music in this film, however, is a much more convincing imitation of sixties pop, and "That Thing You Do" itself is a cheerfully catchy number that would not disgrace Lennon and McCartney themselves. The film's most memorably joyful scene is the one where Guy and his friends start singing and dancing while listening to the song on the radio in his father's electrical appliance store where he works.
The film's main weakness is that it neglects character development, so we do not really understand the tensions which lead to the group's splitting up. It is never really explained why Jimmy, who has hitherto seemed the most serious of the four about the band and his music, should suddenly behave like such a jerk towards both the record company and his girlfriend Faye. (Or, for that matter, why the record company- as we learn in the epilogue- should have given him a second chance with a new band). It is never explained why Faye should have got together with Guy so soon after splitting up with Jimmy or why Guy 's earlier girlfriend Tina should have become the only woman in recorded history to dump a rock musician for a dentist. It is never explained why Lenny should have walked out on the group to elope with a former Bunny girl. (Wouldn't his obviously mercenary new wife have been happier with a successful rock star than with an unsuccessful ex-rock star?) And why was the character of the bass player left so underdeveloped? None of this, however, is the fault of the four young actors who play the members of the group. Although none of them has gone on to become a real household name- perhaps ironically in view of the fact that the film is about a band who fail to find lasting success- they all play their parts here very well. The two actors who have gone on to become famous are the two female leads, Liv Tyler as Faye and Charlize Theron as Tina, neither of whom make much impact in the film itself.
Strangely enough, the lack of credible characters may not be the fault of Tom Hanks either. I understand that in 2007 he released an extended director's cut of the movie; although I have never seen this I understand that it is more than half an hour longer than the theatrically released version and that it does concentrate more on character development. The weaknesses of the version I recently saw on British television, therefore, might be due to over-enthusiastic pruning for theatrical release. I therefore award the film a provisional 7/10, with the option of revising that once I have seen Hanks' version.