That Thing You Do! *** (Tom Everett Scott, Johnathon Schaech, Tom Hanks, Liv Tyler, Charlize Theron) – Classic Film Review 850

In every life there comes a time when that dream you dream becomes that thing you do, it says on the publicity here. That thing Tom Hanks used to do was to be a truly funny comic actor in films like Splash! and Big, but then Philadelphia and Forrest Gump turned him into a very serious double Oscar-winner.

And here in 1996’s That Thing You Do! he lives his dream as screen-writer, song-writer, star and the director as well of an expectedly genial, easy-going tale of a Pennsylvania band of five Sixties mop tops. Predictably, they make it nearly to the top before they fall apart amid rows, recriminations and regrets as one-hit wonders.

A star cast of four then little-knowns (Johnathon Schaech, Steve Zahn, Ethan Embry, Tom Everett Scott) is extremely engaging as the band members of The Wonders. And the Sixties atmosphere is self-consciously and elaborately conjured up, though it’s entertainingly and believably captured. Were the 60s quite so well scrubbed and innocent as this, though? Probably not.

Hanks has a helpful but none too huge support role as the group’s oily Brian Epstein-style manager. And he plays it well, but with such predictable niceness that you long for Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper or Steve Buscemi to bring some danger to the role.

The film’s first half is incisive, detailing the group’s formation with a sharp sense of reality mixed with great good humour. It’s only in the second half that Hanks starts to falter, as he rushes the group’s break-up and pulls away coyly from the sheer selfish nastiness of the lead singer (Schaech).

This likeable film provides a full measure of fun, but Hanks’s idea of fun here is a bit discreet and serious-minded, like a tolerant schoolteacher’s on a class outing.

That thing you don’t do in a movie about one-hit wonders is flog the one hit song to death by replaying it ten times. An Oscar in 1997 for That Thing You Do as best song? I think not! Adam Schlesinger was nominated for a Golden Globe and Oscar for Best Original Song but didn’t win either.

Liv Tyler, Charlize Theron, Obba Babatundé, Giovanni Ribisi, Chris Ellis, Alex Rocco, Bill Cobbs, Peter Scolari, Rita Wilson, Chris Isaak and Kevin Pollak also star. Wilson has been married to Hanks since April 30 1988 and they have two children.

It’s Hanks’s first film as director and remained his only one till 2011’s Harry Crowne.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 850

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