Tommy

Tommy (1975) is Ken Russell's hallucinatory rock musical you can watch online on iFILM — built around The Who's 1969 opera of the same name, written by Pete Townshend. A boy goes deaf, dumb and blind after a childhood shattering enough to break anyone, then discovers he has one uncanny gift: pinball.

Roger Daltrey, The Who's own frontman, plays the title role. Ann-Margret is his mother, trapped between guilt and self-interest, and her performance earned an Academy Award nomination — the chocolate-and-beans scene alone justifies it. Oliver Reed plays the stepfather trying to exploit Tommy's fame. Elton John shows up as the Pinball Wizard in platform boots tall enough to require scaffolding. Tina Turner, Eric Clapton and Jack Nicholson (who sings) fill out a cast that shouldn't exist and somehow works perfectly.

Russell doesn't tell the story so much as project it at full volume. Dialogue is almost entirely absent; the music carries everything. The result is closer to a waking nightmare than a conventional film — vivid, uncomfortable, deliberately excessive. If you want tidy plotting, look elsewhere. If you want one of the strangest and most committed musical films ever made, stream Tommy (1975) online on iFILM.