Those Things They Did

Rating: 8/10 (2 January 2017)

What a nice movie. There was a time when a garage band could put together a hit, find someone to listen to it, and get on the charts. Here, a group called the Oneders (pronounced Wonders) writes and performs a song and manages to get noticed by a record producer, played by Tom Hanks. Soon, they find themselves on a band competition where the emcee announces them as the o-need-era. When the achieve a reasonable success, they face the challenges that many bands did, artistic direction. One of the undermines things be not taking the whole thing seriously, and the women in their lives cause other issues. Their lack of experience in the big, bad world is also an issue. How far can they go with what they have. This is a quiet, charming story that focuses in on the lives of these everyday guys.