The cast of ' The Commitments'has reunited for concerts, but while the original book has stood the test of time, fondness for the movie is based on nostalgia more than its merits, writes MICK HEANEY
IN 1990, when film director Alan Parker arrived in Dublin to cast The Commitments, it was the X Factorof its time. More than 60 local bands showed off their chops for Parker, hoping for roles in his screen version of Roddy Doyle's comic novel about a chaotic northside soul group. An open audition was held at the Mansion House, attracting 1,500 aspiring singers, actors and musicians. Some bookshops even experienced a run on Doyle's novel, as would-be cast members sought out the original story.
For a short-lived cover versions band, and a fictional one at that, The Commitmentsdisplayed a formidable pulling power from the start. It is an appeal which has apparently proved enduring. Twenty years on from the 1991 release of Parker's film, the original cast – or most of them – have reunited to perform the movie's soundtrack of soul standards at a series of concerts this week.
At first glance, the reunion is testament to the affection in which the film is still held. But watching The Commitmentstwo decades later, such fondness seems based as much on nostalgia for a bygone era as on its actual merits. What stands out in the movie now is not so much its rambunctious portrait of Dublin working-class life as its preponderance of stereotypes, its comic obviousness and its occasional ponderousness.
Even when it was being filmed, The Commitmentswas slightly out of time. Its source material was rooted in the bleakest days of the recession. Having started out as a playwright, Doyle self-published his novel in 1987. Fresh when it first appeared, the book remains a zippy read, as it recounts loafer-cum-manager Jimmy Rabbitte's attempts to form and control his group. Largely consisting of dialogue, the tale was not as zany as some assumed: there was a Dublin soul band called The Commotion at the time.
If Doyle's book gave voice – however exaggerated – to an overlooked Dublin working class, Parker's subsequent interest was a vote of confidence in an Ireland trying to shake off the trauma of the 1980s. Parker was then a big Hollywood name, who had first made his name with thrillers such as Midnight Expressand exuberant musicals such as Fame. Here was someone who could recreate the novel's combination of urban savvy and profane comedy.
Looking at the film now, however, the amount of Irish clichés on show is cringe-inducing. The fictional Barrytown neighbourhood boasts more horses than a Perry Ogden book, every home has a picture of the Pope or the Sacred Heart and there is even a benign, pop-loving priest (Mark O’Regan), a character who did not feature in the book. (In fairness, most of the film’s characters are indifferent to religion.) The musical elements are also uneven. The scenes of ramshackle early rehearsals ring true, while the sequences that marry songs with the characters’ everyday lives retain their verve. But the climactic concert, filmed in the now-defunct Waterfront venue, is like watching, well, a well-drilled soul covers band in a nightclub: harmless fun, but hardly the stuff of riveting cinema.
In hindsight, the film makes little reference to the green shoots then stirring in Ireland. Temple Bar, already a vibrant quarter back then, looks like a tenement block, while the only reference to Ireland’s exploits in the 1990 World Cup, a pivotal event which immeasurably boosted the country’s self-image, is a poster on Jimmy’s wall.
But in the absence of many comparable screen artifacts, The Commitmentshas helped define the period in popular memory, certainly far more than other urban-based Irish films of the period, such as The Courier. And by offering young Irish people the prospect of starring in a movie based on their experience, the brouhaha around the film's production contributed to the slow growth of self-confidence.
The current tour adds another resonant backnote to the film. Much like the fictional characters they played, the young cast of The Commitmentsnever went onto global stardom, the eerily ageless Glen Hansard's success in Once being the closest thing to an exception. But as veteran trumpeter Joey "The Lips" Fagan, as played by Johnny Murphy, says about the band's experiences in the film's closing moments: "Success is irrelevant. You raised their expectations of life, you lifted their horizons." It is a corny line, but looking back it seems to capture the cautiously optimistic mood of the time.
Perhaps we could do with some of the Commitments’ spirit now.
The Commitments play TF Royal Theatre, Castlebar tonight, Inec, Killarney tomorrow, Odyssey, Belfast Thurs and O2, Dublin Sat
