The Commitments (1991, Alan Parker) (Patreon)

86/100

Umpteenth viewing, last seen sometime prior to 1996 (when I started logging repeats). To call this the Irish Metropolitan would be wildly misleading, but I nonetheless tend to think of those two films jointly, as both are loving ensemble portraits of slightly stunted, semi-charismatic young adults whose foibles are deeply rooted in cultural and especially linguistic specificity. What's more, I initially considered both quite good—each landed toward the bottom of my contemporaneous top 10 list, with what would today probably be a rating in the low 70s—and then gradually fell in love with them over the course of obsessive repeat viewings. Their vividly idiosyncratic worlds feel fully realized, and it's part of the charm that virtually none of the then-unknown actors went on to have notable careers (exceptions: Chris Eigeman, Maria Doyle Kennedy, to a lesser extent Glen Hansard), thereby making their characters register as people rather than performances, even decades later. And there's essentially no narrative to distract you from the spiky group dynamic*, though here we do have the band's formation-to-dissolution arc as a skeletal throughline. It's really just the joy of distinctive personalities in communion, supplemented in this case by the Commitments' eventual exultation onstage. (The Commitments arguably qualifies as one of Parker's several musicals, alongside Bugsy Malone and Fame and Pink Floyd—The Wall and Evita. Complete with reprises, of sorts: A couple of songs—as performed by the full band—are employed during montages that take place before Jimmy has even recruited its members.) There's hardly an exchange in either film that doesn't make me smile, and I tend to unconsciously think of everyone in them as friends with whom I keep regrettably falling out of touch. (That's amplified by subsequent films in the same vein—Stillman's later work, obviously, but also Frears' adaptations of The Snapper and The Van.)

It's entirely possible, too, that The Commitments was instrumental in expanding my perception of Ireland, which at that point I knew primarily from rather grim Jim Sheridan pictures. Parker transplanted the story from Doyle's fictional Northside suburb to Dublin proper, and I'm not remotely qualified to assess what difference, if any, that might have made. (Read the novel many years ago and recall the film as being quite faithful to it, but regional quirks would surely escape me.) I was forcefully struck this time around, however, by the teeming life visible in the distance of virtually every exterior shot, which makes the average movie seem downright underpopulated by comparison. Little kids, in particular, are everywhere, as if a hundred Dublin Florida Projects are unfolding in parallel with the band's story. Somehow—maybe because it's mostly little kids, encouraged to genuinely play as if a movie weren't being shot around them—this chaotic activity comes across as organic and spontaneous to a degree that movie extras typically can't manage, and creates the impression of the city as an animating force (but not "almost another character," good job Wain). And Parker, who's more formally savvy than cinephiles tend to acknowledge, then finds opportunities for stillness within the hubbub. One of my favorite moments sees the very minor character of Jimmy's oldest sister, Sharon (played by Andrea Corr of The Corrs), wander into the room during the lengthy audition sequence and rest her head tenderly on Jimmy's shoulder, without speaking a word, as he continues talking to whichever self-deluded musician had reached the front of the queue. No relationship to speak of had previously been established between these siblings, and Sharon remains a background presence throughout; it's a remnant of Doyle's Barrytown trilogy (Sharon's the protagonist of The Snapper, though Frears' film changes the family name from Rabbitte to Curley for some reason, even as it retains Colm Meaney) that serves as lovely inflection onscreen. For all the inevitable acrimony that dooms its titular band, and its energetic renditions of soul classics en route to that fate, The Commitments is a wonderfully laid-back, modest, unassuming slice of life, perfectly cast and expertly calibrated. More than that, it's a movie in which Derek reveals that his shitty wedding band is called And And And, prompting an incredulous Jimmy to ask, in that most sarcastic of all Anglophone accents, "And And fuckin' And?!"

Suppose I should note for the record: No, the Commitments (who not only genuinely perform onscreen, with the exception of Joey the Lips, but went on tour after the movie's release) are not Wilson Pickett or Aretha Franklin or Otis Redding. They're a decent bar band (pub band?) with a fantastic lead male vocalist. Neither the book nor the film pretends otherwise, and both are conscious of the appropriation issue, with Dean asking, when Jimmy insists on R&B as the band's repertoire, "Do you not think, uh, we're like...maybe we're a little white for that kind of thing?" (I'm not sure that we see a single person of color in the entire movie, actually. Though I just looked up Dublin's demographics and it was 86% white as recently as 2016, so perhaps that shouldn't raise any eyebrows.) Jimmy's response is meant to be idiotic, in my opinion, and doesn't seem to me offensive excepting in said idiocy, but I haven't poked around to see whether others disagree.

Amazing fun fact I hadn't previously known: The kid who shows up to audition on a skateboard and just amiably leaves when Jimmy, from a window, asks him to sing on the street (another favorite moment) is the kid from the covers of Boy and War. Didn't recognize him without his arms crossed behind his head.

* Linklater's not the dialogue virtuoso that Stillman and Doyle are, but pretty much everything I'm saying about Metropolitan and The Commitments, I've just realized, applies equally to Dazed and Confused, which I likewise grew to love over numerous revisits (though it actually dropped a bit in my estimation when last I watched it, back in 2011).