Blame it on their youth

Rating: 10/10 (4 February 2007)

These are Dubliners that James Joyce would recognise.raucous,opinionated, lustful,quarrelsome......but,far above everything else,alive.Gloriously rudely,bursting with energy alive.Despite the sink estates,the tower blocks,the overcrowding,the repressive religion and the poverty,these people are grabbing life by the testicles and squeezing."The Commitments" is if you like a story about the redemptive power of music.A fairly random group of young musicians and singers of varying abilities who get together to form a Soul band initially getting unpaid gigs in the Church Hall/Youth Club circuit before graduating to semi - professional status. Most of them are looking for a way out of an apparently pre - ordained future as shelf - stackers or baby factories.Playing Soul gives them a release,however fleetingly,from this promised drudgery. The one grown - up(if you can ever refer to musicians as grown - up)in the band is the trumpeter,a fifty something who has been there,seen it and got the album credits.The others are deeply respectful of his ability and experience . The Commitments improve gig by gig and by the time they appear at the "Miami"club they are on the verge of securing a record deal and having a shot at the Big Time.But there is to be no fairytale ending. The boys are wildly hormonal,the girls profoundly distrustful.There are petty jealousies and musical differences.As the saxophone player's technique improves he takes on a jazz - like tone."Jazz is music for w*nkers",says the band manager dismissively.The drummer leaves because he can't stand the lead singer and they are forced to "train up" the local psycho to take his place.The band becomes a disaster waiting to happen and the it implodes after the "Miami" gig when a promised appearance by Wilson Pickett fails to take place. Perhaps if they had been older the testosterone would not have flowed so freely,but their sheer energy was a large part of their appeal. So,in a whirlwind of boots,fists and recriminations The Commitments spectacularly self - destruct. But all of them have been changed in a positive way by the music. Their experiences have broadened horizons and raised bars. None of them will ever be the same again. I have deliberately refrained from talking about performances because right across the board they hardly seem like performances at all. That is artifice of the highest order and Mr Parker and his cast are to be congratulated on bringing it off so triumphantly. Finally "The Commitments"is a movie about the unquenchable human spirit, the refusal to accept the ordinary and the fires lit in adolescence that some of us,if we're lucky,carry through the whole of our lives. Whether it's Percy Sledge,Charlie Parker or Yehudi Menuhin,it's all music and whatever gets you through the night is all that matters.