Tommy

Vulgar. Aggressive. Grotesque. Sensory overload. It’s all too much. Daltrey’s performance is so weird, so convincing, with those blank, beautiful eyes of his. His character, the titular Tommy, is more absence than man. A medium. A messiah. Ann-Margaret’s performance, as well…?!?!? Jesus. She gives us this messy, enormous arc of guilt, eroticism, desperation, maternal love, and even religious ecstasy. She is repellent and sympathetic. Hideous and beautiful. Tommy is a tale of transformation. Spectacle. Consumerism. Idolization. The glamorization of sex and drugs and other vices. The line between exploitation and sincere, spiritual yearning becomes thinner and thinner with each scene and sequence. Also, the cinematography? MASTERFUL. Russell and Bush are a match made in pinball/rock-n-roll heaven. It’s audacious. Wide compositions. Extreme perspectives. A strange, charismatic splice of Renaissance and sleazy, contemporary Rockaria!