Tommy (1975)

Get ready kids this will be a long one.

Yeah so back in the days when people started to make rock operas, The Who made Tommy. First released as a concept album in 1969, the work was made into a film with Ken Russell as director and Roger Daltrey as the eponymous character. The story is... loose, to say the least. It's like this: Nora (Ann-Margret) loses her husband (Robert Powell) in WWII and must raise their newborn son Tommy on her own. A few years later she shacks up with Frank Hobbs (Oliver Reed), a larger-than-life camp director with a penchant for alcohol and lovemaking. One night the supposedly-dead father comes home and finds his wife in bed with Frank. In a confused rage Frank kills him with a lamp, all in front of little Tommy. Nora and Frank try to convince him he saw nothing, heard nothing, and won't speak about it. This triggers psychosomatic blindness, deafness, and muteness in the boy. Flash-forward several years later and Tommy has grown up, cared for by his mother who tries weird religious cures like the Church of Marilyn Monroe. Frank tries to get him laid by the Acid Queen (Tina Turner). One day he stumbles upon a pinball machine and is instantly a pro, prompting his rise to stardom as a world-class pinball player, even defeating the champ (Elton John). He makes his family super rich but Nora is still sad about his diminished senses. His celebrity increases to cult status (like the thousands of people worshiping kind, not the Rocky Horror kind) after a miracle occurs. But we all know fake pinball celebrity religions never last. Also all of this is completely sung.

Ok so it's a commentary on the commercialization of famous people and their position as pseudo religious figures. I get it, I really do. And the whole "See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me" mantra speaks to the alienation we all experience due to varying circumstances. That's ok. I dig the music and a lot of the visuals were interesting and trippy, including the highly stylized costumes and settings. It's certainly a unique story, so that's always good. But honestly... it just wasn't that enjoyable. I wanted to like this movie, I really did. I'm not super familiar with The Who but I dig the songs I know, and I had heard very good things about the film/play and thought a 70's rock opera about pinball could do no wrong. Unfortunately there were many things that felt off. A lot of the performances were sub-par. I know Ann-Margret is like this great sex symbol and of course we all love when she rolls around in soap suds and beans but her voice wasn't that great and her acting was flat. Oliver Reed was just loud most of the time. Roger Daltrey spent most of the movie with a blank stare (which is understandable) and shirt off (also no complaints) but very little effort is made to actually characterize Tommy (this is partially shortcomings of the writing, not just his performance). Tina Turner was annoying. Jack Nicholson is very out of place. I liked Elton John and Eric Clapton, but that's about it. I didn't feel particularly interested in any of the characters and the story was too jumpy so I wasn't exactly hooked there. I spent most of the movie feeling like I was missing something- why is this movie such a big deal? Was it just novel for its time? Is it just the fans' ardour for the album spilling over into its other incarnations? It's not that I disliked it, I just thought I'd like it a lot more than I did. It was definitely interesting and it made an impact, but it didn't feel particularly smart or incredible. It might just something that works better conceptually than physically. The ending left me in a confused and buhhh kind of mood- suddenly religion is ok? Jesus was my co-pilot all along? I didn't get that, honestly, so if someone can clarify things for me I'd be most grateful.

3/5

The best scene/song in the movie.