Y’ain’t Seen!?… The Commitments
Starring almost no knew you knew then or remember now, The Commitments is a 1991 cinematic adaptation of Roddy Doyle’s novel about a group of young musicians trying to start a 60’s-style soul band in the hard streets of working-class Dublin.
“Aren’t you afraid we’re all a bit, uh…White?” guitarist Derek Scully asks band manager and (self-proclaimed) musical visionary Jimmy Rabbitte, who responds: “The Irish are the blacks of Europe, and Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland, and Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin.”
Rising from a drab and dirty landscape infested with dogs and a lack of opportunities, The Commitments feature ten musicians, including Joey “The Lips” Fagan who’s blown his trumpet with all the greats (or has he), madman/brawler Mickah Wallace on drums, showboat gobshite Declan “Deco” Cuffee on lead vocals, and Imelda Quirke, the foxiest blond background vocalist a soul band has ever seen.
Clocking in at a taut 118 minutes, The Commitments shines through its music – primarily gripping renditions of Wilson Pickett tunes – and director Alan Parker’s ( Bugsy Malone, Midnight Express) ability to let the simple storyline relax and lean into the music and relationships between his band members shine (including multiple barrages of Irish/UK slang and insults that hold even more charm in a time when friends barely even hang out with each other in real life, let alone take the piss out one another).
In a 2016 interview with The Guardian, Parker said, “When I let the cast fly, they improvised like crazy, breaking the record for the most swearwords used in a film. It got an R-rating in the US – maybe why it only made $15m on first release.”
Besides wondering why most of these actors/actresses didn’t have much larger careers (Robert Arkins carries the film as Jimmy Rabbitte, yet he never made another one), the stakes are low with this one. The Commitments shows little interest in solving anyone’s real-world problems other than to remind us that music can unite us, artists are crazy, and no matter how shite life is a good night at the pub with a good band on stage is always a good escape.
For anyone who’s been in (or ever dreamed of being in) a band, this is pure bliss (and Angeline Bell’s Imelda Quirke is one of the most beautiful characters of the 1990s).
