With all apologies to David Lynch, in “That Thing You Do!” the film isn’t the thing.
Tom Hanks’ directorial debut, which was released to critical praise but was a box office disappointment, doesn’t hinge on the charming, passable performances of its lead actors. It doesn’t get by on its script, which tells the story of an out-of-nowhere rock ‘n roll band and their earworm of a hit song. Written by Hanks, the screenplay is so thin that the star lists out the stock types of each character in the third act. It definitely doesn’t get by on studio glitz; even if the production team did a bang-up job of recreating the early 1960s, they can’t get around the fact that much of this movie is set in a dreary Erie, Pennsylvania. Whether “That Thing You Do!” works for audiences — and the cozy, quick story of a flash-in-the-pan band has resonated with a ton of people since its release in 1996 — depends entirely on if the title song lands.
Credit for that has to go to Adam Schlesinger, the late pop-rocker and bassist for Fountains of Wayne who wrote the track with nothing more than the film’s title and a few hints at the story. He needed to recreate the sound of the thousands of teenagers who had their heads rearranged by The Beatles and immediately ran to their garages to pick up guitars — and he nailed the teenybopper perfectionism of early Lennon-McCartney joints. The song’s backbeat is crisp. The bassline struts. The emotions are big, dumb and messy, but no one told that to the harmonies. Even the brief imitation of Lennon’s “losing control” scream is laser-precise, meant to boost the song’s momentum and carry it through a cheery and lazy surf solo. Give it a listen; it sounds like it was written by committee and by four bored teens in equal measure. It’s lightning.
“That Thing You Do!” had to be that good, because no fictional rock band has ever leaned harder on their hit. The film follows the whirlwind, two-month career of The Wonders, a group so replacement-level that we first meet them arguing over “The” band names that are already taken. Drummer Guy Patterson (Tom Everett Scott) is the star of the film but the bassist joining him in the rhythm section, played in the film by Ethan Embry, doesn’t even have a name. (He’s listed as T.B. Player in the credits.) With lead singer Jimmy Mattingly III (Johnathon Schaech) and guitarist Lenny Haise (Steve Zahn) out in front, they go from local sensation to Billboard chart-toppers in weeks and implode just as spectacularly. Across that timespan, the audience is treated to “That Thing You Do!” in part or in full eight times, once every 13 minutes. Whether that’s the result of a threadbare script or just Hanks knowing what he had is up to the viewer to decide. What’s certain is that “Thing” never gets old.
Unlike The Wonders, Schlesinger’s ability to write a world-beating earworm was no fluke. He pulled off that trick multiple times. Just give a listen to “Pretend to Be Nice” from 2001’s “Josie and the Pussycats.” He’s the pen behind 2005’s “Just the Girl” by the Click Five, which laid a mall-emo whine and reverb-heavy drums over The Wonders’ tried and true formula. If you’ve heard of Schlesinger at all — and aren’t a power-pop geek or a “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” superfan — it was likely through his band Fountains of Wayne and their 2003 hit “Stacy’s Mom.” Though that’s not his band’s best — that honor goes to “Radiation Vibe” or “All Kinds of Time” depending on the mood — it’s more proof that Schlesinger had a direct line to the idealized past in his brain. He could channel an undeniable pop hit out of that ether whenever he wanted.
Talent like his is in short supply in 2026, especially after Schlesinger himself passed away in 2020. Watching “That Thing You Do!” climbing the charts throughout the movie is a peek into an alien musical world, one that was both more regional and more monocultural than the one we inhabit today.
The song starts as a word-of-mouth sensation, filling a local restaurant as more and more teenagers hear about this new band and their soon-to-be hit from their friends. They press vinyl to sell at shows, and it gets into the hands of disc jockeys at ever-larger radio stations with an increasing number of watts behind their broadcasts. A labelman, played with equal parts tenderness and sleaze by Hanks, swoops in to take the boys on a tour of state fairs. When the song outgrows the blue-ribbon crowd, they’re flown to Los Angeles for one nationally televised performance before falling out in a bit of dressing room melodrama.
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The Wonders’ origins and skyrocketing fame built by the ability to press a record locally and impress radio programmers who curated their playlists by hand, are practically a fantasy in the consolidated media landscape of today. The idea of one song taking hold among the entire nation’s teenagers is even more ridiculous now that streaming has fractured the musical monoculture. Global connection came with a kind of dispersion, diluting shared connections closer to home while allowing for worldwide discovery.
For proof, just look at the (Wonder-less) Billboard charts today. Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” just broke the record for most weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100. Meanwhile, the chorus of people who claim to have never heard the song grows louder every single day. The debate whether this is a mark of country music classism rages in the pages of the Rolling Stone, itself a bit of a relic from those more culturally unified days.
“That Thing You Do!” hides its nugget of pop music consensus inside another bygone bit of shared culture: the afternoon cable movie. These easy lifts don’t ask you to think too much. They get in and out in under two hours, often starting as minor hits that become part of the cultural fabric through repetition; they’re on in the background and there when you need them. Films like “That Thing You Do!” are neither notable nor offensive to the typical viewer, and they never make you wonder “Who is this for?” If that question was ever asked, the answer is simple. It’s delivered in three-part harmony in the opening seconds of The Wonder’s lone pseudo-hit, gorgeous and unmissable.
Who wants to listen to this Beatles pastiche, dreamed up to get Tom Hanks’ film studio off the ground? You.
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from Alex Galbraith
