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That Thing You Do!
© Unknown - all rights reserved |
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| Tookey's Rating |
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6
/10 |
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| Average Rating |
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6.67
/10 |
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| Starring |
Guy Patterson ...... Tom Everett Scott  , Faye ............... Liv Tyler, Jimmy .............. Johnathon Schaech
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| Full Cast > |
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Directed by:
Tom Hanks
Written by:
Tom Hanks
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| Released: |
1996 |
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| Genre: |
ROMANCE
COMEDY
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| Origin: |
US |
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| Colour: |
C |
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| Length: |
110 |
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The Wonders are a fictional American pop group which rises to fame in Summer 1964 and, just as abruptly, breaks up under the strain of success. They are literally one-hit Wonders. |
Reviewed by Chris Tookey
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| Tom Hanks’s first film as writer-director is cinematic candy-floss: a sweet, weightless confection. The film relies for much of its charm on Tom Everett Scott (looking like a young Tom Hanks) as Shades the drummer, a decent, unassuming youth with a taste for jazz, who simply regards making pop music as fun. Romantic interest is provided by Liv Tyler, who doesn’t have much to do except hang out with the group, but seizes her one dramatic moment with aplomb. Hanks turns up himself as an avuncular pop executive. He’s far too nice and laid-back to be credible, but then so is the film. Every group’s history includes tales of greed and personal betrayal, but there’s only one character who sows dissension, the lead singer and writer (Johnathon Schaech), and that’s because he takes himself seriously as an artist. The Commitments and This Is Spinal Tap were hard-hitting by comparison. It’s worth seeing and hearing for the affectionate parodies of Sixties music, from the mournful girl’s group suffering from an overdose of Joan Baez through to some bogus Burt Bacharach. Best of all is the title song, a genuinely catchy number which Lennon and McCartney might easily have come up with in 1964. No American group really sounded like this. Hanks has cheerfully appropriated the Liverpool sound and given it to his fellow-countrymen. There are other inaccuracies - for instance, Hanks seems to think that “wicked” was a term of approval back then - and he would have made a far better film if he’d had something to say. But That Thing You Do! is like the man himself - modest, engaging, easy to like. | |
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