Alan Parker’s Dublin band comedy is funny, warm and carried by the pleasure of hearing its performers come together. Some characters get short-changed, and the polish occasionally works against it, but the music earns our enthusiasm.
Alan Parker takes the work of forming a soul band seriously enough to make it funny. The young, working-class Dubliners in The Commitments have American songs to aim at and plenty of enthusiasm to spend, though getting everybody to pull together is another matter. We recommend this comedy warmly for its music and its pleasure in people trying something difficult. Parker sometimes makes their rough beginnings look a little too tidy, but he gives the performances time to work.
Roddy Doyle adapts his novel with Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, and the script finds jokes in the practical difficulty of organising people with ambitions of their own. We laughed at the auditions. The hopefuls’ eagerness and the cast’s precise timing do it: Parker lets their efforts become funny without treating ambition itself as something shameful. That kindness matters, because the swearing and quick exchanges could otherwise become a rather tiring demonstration of how amusing everybody is.
Robert Arkins, as Jimmy Rabbitte, is good at making enthusiasm seem like a quality that might exhaust everybody nearby. Andrew Strong, Angeline Ball and Maria Doyle Kennedy help keep the ensemble from feeling like a crowd hired to agree with him. The actors have the untidy eagerness this sort of story needs, but their comic timing is controlled. Parker gets the useful impression that everybody is keen to be heard, even when nobody is keen to listen.
Gale Tattersall’s photography gives Dublin a useful roughness; the setting does not look as though it has been tidied for the band. Brian Morris’s production design gives the musicians a convincing working-class setting. The surroundings matter because they keep these ambitions modest and local, even when the singing becomes forceful. The occasional slickness is more noticeable because so much of the film looks unpolished.
Gerry Hambling’s editing is particularly good at giving the ensemble its comic rhythm. He keeps the formation of the band moving, but leaves enough space for us to enjoy the sound they make together. With Wilson Pickett among the music credits, it would be easy for the songs to dominate our attention. Parker keeps us interested in the performers’ effort, and much of the pleasure comes from hearing them begin to work as a group.
The weakness is how unevenly those people are drawn. For all its attention to getting a band together, the script leaves some members defined chiefly by what they contribute to the comedy or the music. We wanted a little more time with them when neither was required. That thinness is easy to overlook during a number, but becomes harder to ignore whenever the film asks us to care about the musicians as people.
Band films often make us sit through a good deal of difficulty before permitting any enjoyment. Parker allows the music to be pleasurable while the people are still learning how to work together, and keeps their achievement in proportion. Nobody needs to believe this group is about to change music for the performances to be worth hearing. Watch it with someone who likes soul and will forgive a crowded comedy for not giving everybody equal time.
