Nostalgic look back at the 1960s, when I was a beginning college student.

Rating: Null/10 (17 December 2012)

I had seen this movie a number of years ago but didn't remember much about it, so I saw it again today on DVD from my public library. I was a college Freshman in 1963/64, when the Beatles were first gaining popularity on this side of the pond, and this movie fairly accurately recreates that period, the way people dressed, and how teenagers reacted when seeing their pop idols live in concert.
The story grabs hold of a theme I am very fond of pondering, both in real life and in fiction stories. That theme is the relative randomness of our lives, the things that happen, and then how we react to those random events. If we look at random events in our own lives, we can see how certain unexpected things shaped who we are today.
In this movie a group of high school friends like to make music, one of them writes songs and is the featured singer. He has written "That Thing You Do" and they are about to perform it in a local small-potatoes contest. But the drummer, horsing around by showing the bass player how to jump over parking meters, falls and breaks his arm right before the contest.
Now that is the "random event", and it leads them to ask another guy in town, who is a good drummer, to sit in for that one gig, so that they will still have a chance to win the competition. Then comes the rest of the influence of that "random event", the drummer own his own (this is important) decides to beat out a much faster tempo. It is this faster tempo that makes "That Thing You Do" a hit with the audience, attracts the attention of an agent, gets them a record, gets them a contract, puts them on tour, and has their hit rise towards the top of the charts.
If their original drummer had not broken his arm, they would have just remained an ordinary band.
Well as the story progresses they experience all the growing pains of sudden fame, and conflicting priorities among the members of the group. Tom Hanks directed, has a part as a record label agent, and he even wrote many of the songs.
Tom Everett Scott who was in his mid-20s is very good as the replacement drummer, Guy Patterson. Liv Tyler, still a teenager was Faye Dolan who ended up traveling with the band. Her boyfriend was Johnathon Schaech as Jimmy who wrote the song and sang lead vocals. Steve Zahn was the crazy member Lenny, and Ethan Embry, also a teenager, was T. B. Player the unreliable bass player.
Another teenager just starting her career was Charlize Theron as Tina in a fairly small part, as a flaky girlfriend who dumps Guy after an appointment with a handsome dentist. Plus young Giovanni Ribisi as Chad , the original drummer who breaks his arm.
All in all a fairly pleasant movie.