Use the "Back" button on your browser.
To return to the main TV Barn page:
Click here or on the Barn logo.
That Thing You Do! (1996) ![[Three stars]](images/stars-3-4.gif){kind=small}
Full IMDb listing
It's one hell of a song.
It's peppy, it's snappy. It really moves along and it's got great harmonies and a driving beat. It's like an aurally-transmitted virus. You hear it once, and you're humming it and singing it all day long. It requires no effort whatsoever to believe that this song, once it's backed by a label with the power to get it some airplay, could take the entire country by storm and be teleported into the Top Ten.
Which is a damned stroke of luck for this film, because if even if "Citizen Kane" forced you to listen to an annoying song over and over again, a quarter of the way into it you'd be sneaking into another theater in the cineplex. And then halfway through it you'd move yet again, because you could still hear snippets of the tune through those paper-thin cineplex partitions.
Part of the fun of "That Thing You Do" is watching the song evolve from a slow, pudding-like love ballad into a driving pop Godzilla, which is an apt analogy for the development of the 1960's-era band that makes it a hit. Their name, "The OneDers," is typical of the band's problems at the start of the film. It's led by Jimmy, the self-absorbed "genius" who engages in fits of cleverness without benefit of insight into what normal humans might want or might respond to. "'One.' See? It's a play on words," he helpfully explains to the group's flighty lead guitarist. "Right. Got it," he replies. "Everyone is still gonna think it's 'The Oh-NEED-ers'." He is very correct.
Enter Guy Patterson, who works in his father's appliance store by day and drums passionately in the store's basement deep into the night after the lights are turned off. He's drafted into the OneDers for a one-time gig when their dead-weight drummer breaks his arm a day before a college band contest. But once onstage, Guy spontaneously upgrades the backbeat of the band's new song from a torpid pitter-pat to a jazz-influenced frenzied throcking. The band is forced to try to keep up as best it can, and when it's all over with, the response of the crowd is so primally enthusiastic and so immediate that Jimmy doesn't have time to adequately ream out Guy.
Over the summer, the song will become more polished, more commercial, and way more successful, along with the band. They make their way up the ladder, from local promoters and events to national tours with major labels. The road is littered with snapshots of life in the 1960, as well as cautionary tales from the music industry. There's the singer who flirted with stardom once, but rather than face facts and make the inevitable transition to selling real estate he's eking out a showbiz career, singing his one hit song and then introducing the act people really came to see. There's the girl singer who's learned that the music industry has no use for a girl singer in her late thirties and wishes she'd figured that out ten years earlier. Guy, the most serious performer of the group, meets one of his idols, an elderly jazzman worthy of emulation not merely because of his keyboard technique but also because he's succeeded in building a lifelong career out of making music.
(Also, CLINT ALERT! Clint Howard, brother of director Ron Howard and America's Ironman Of Character Acting, shows up here as a DJ at a small jazz station.)
Tom Hanks, who wrote and directed "That Thing You Do!", enters the film halfway in as Mr. White, the manager assigned to them by their record label. If this were a lesser film, White would be a Great Satan (which can be bought 144 to the blister-pack at Los Angeles-area warehouse clubs), using the twin tools of Temptation Of Wealth And Fame and Contractual Obligation to manipulate the group into forsaking creativity and musicianship in the pursuit of becoming a longterm profit center for their label. White does come across as cold and dispassionate. He is, above all, a businessman, and seems to understand that "The Wonders" are just his next assignment on his way to his next assignment after this one. But the best interests of the band are his best interests, and contrary to Jimmy The Genius' outbursts, he serves the band well. Hell, the first thing he did was change their name to something that people would actually understand. White is a professional trying to manage the unprofessional, and the seeds of the band's downfall are sown from within, not without.
"That Thing You Do!" the movie works well because it's so much like "That Thing You Do!" the song. It's fun and charming. It's in tune with what people like and want and it's overwhelmingly entertaining. What it isn't is profound and moving...but it wasn't intended to be. Billy Crystal, another serious-comedy movie star who decided to write and direct a film of his own, might have avoided the mistakes of "Mr. Saturday Night" had he seen "That Thing You Do!" first. When a nice little comedy has been stumbled into a steel leg-hold trap in the wild and then roped, hog-tied, and led by trainers armed with electrical stun-wands into an arena where it's forced to do a Pathos act, the only proper audience response is shock and horror.
Read the lyrics to "That Thing You Do!"
Back to the Andy Ihnatko archive
© 2000 Andy Ihnatko. May not be redistributed without permission. Studio PR types wishing to send Andy tapes, promotional clothing, or high-end video gear in hopes of securing a positive review are advised that such efforts are futile, but they're free to try to determine how high Andy's price actually is. Mail any and all pelft to Box 279, Norwood, MA 02062. He could use a new subwoofer for his home-theater setup.
Search TV Barn