Dublin. The unemployed Jimmy decides to create a soul band, The Commitments, and be its manager. He holds an audition in the home of his parents, and numerous people apply. He chooses three girls as singers—Natalie, Imelda, Bernie—and seven guys as musicians—Outspan, Derek, Dean, Steven, Billy, Joey Fagan—plus the overweight Deco as the lead singer. Jimmy buys them instruments and finds a first gig: at a church hall, under the excuse that it is an anti-heroin musical event. Joey seduces all the women in the band, claiming to have known Elvis. They don't have money, but they book other gigs. Deco becomes impossibly arrogant, thinking he is the main star of the band. Just s a talent agent offers them a contract with a budget company, The Commitments start a fight and break up in disunity.
The surprising winner of BAFTA awards for best film, director and adapted screenplay, "The Commitments" is one of the most popular Irish films of the 20th century, a simple, but accessible and effective bitter-sweet story about a dozen nobodies who attempt to becomes "somebodies", in this case how a bunch of Dubliners start a soul band from the title to raise their significance. Even though he previously directed mostly dramas, the director Alan Parker shows a lot of sense and enthusiasm for humor in this comedy, augmented by the screenplay based on the novel by Roddy Doyle, who perfectly captures the mentality and spirit of the Irish from that era. However, there are too many characters in this story (and band), and thus there is not enough time to dedicate to all of them, thereby inevitably leaving most of them feeling like extras, as we don't find out much about them. Nonetheless, three actors stand out the most and feel genuinely fascinating: Robert Arkins as manager Jimmy, the founder of the band; Johnny Murphy as trumpet player Joey Fagan; and especially the comical Colm Meaney as Jimmy's dad, who remarkably just accepts his plan to host an improvised audition at his home.
The first half of "The Commitments" works the best, elegantly establishing many characters and the poor circumstances they want to escape from. In one funny sequence at a wedding, a guy is pushed and accidentally spills his drink over the dress of the local beauty Imelda, mostly along her chest area, who says she will wash it later, while two guys look at her, until one says: "Wash it? I'd frame it!" Fagan has a way with words, being able to persuade a lot of people with his enthusiasm, especially when he introduces himself to Jimmy: "Why would you want to join us?" - "The Lord sent me. And the Lord blows my trumpet." Jimmy is very effervescent, spending either his time talking to himself by imagining he is having an interview after becoming famous, or coaching the amateur band: "I want a strict diet of soul!" The second half loses its humor, charm, and is "eaten" too much by sole singing and stage performances of the soul band, which become excessive, leaving too little room for the "proper" storytelling, since, after all, this is not a collection of music videos. This reduces the film's initial high impression. The ending is also disappointing, showing that there was never real unity in this band, which also takes a toll on these sympathetic characters from the beginning, who ended up rather arrogant in the end. One unforgettable quote between Jimmy and Fagan must be mentioned, showing thinking outside of success, looked at it only from the perspective of optimistic life journey: "I've achieved nothing!" - "You're missing the point. The success of the band was irrelevant: you raised their expectations of life, you lifted their horizons. Sure, we could have been famous and made albums and stuff, but that would have been predictable. This way it's poetry."
Grade:++
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