The Movie Nut




 

 

Melissa McCarthy can be a very funny woman, but she’s not ready to drive a car or to carry a movie. And she proves that here. To her credit, “Tammy” isn’t as raw and raunchy as it might have been, but it’s not as funny as it should be, either.

The female cast is strong, but the script is exceptionally weak. Bates, Toni Collette, Sandra Oh and Allison Janney all struggle to find a reason to be here. Sarandon is unconvincing in her role.

The direction (by Falcone) and the writing ( by Falcone and McCarthy) lack crispness and a sense of pace. Scenes are allowed to go on way too long; jokes run well past their punch line. Ideas are past their expiration date.

McCarthy reverts to trashtalking vulgarity and pratfalls that poke fun at her size. She’s done that so many times it’s no longer fresh, surprising or funny.

Both the movie and the audience sit for long periods of time waiting for something to happen, trying to figure out somewhere to go. When the plot finally decides it’s time to go to Niagara Falls, it seems to be heading there in search of the movie’s ending.

Ah, finally.

This wants to be a road film, a buddy comedy, a story of two losers on the lam. It never finds its traction; it keeps getting stuck in neutral.

When Tammy (McCarthy) is fired from her job at the local burger joint, she comes home to find her husband (Nat Faxon) cheating with their neighbor ( Collette). Tammy needs to leave, but a deer has wrecked her car and she’s out of money. When her randy, alcoholic grandmother, Pearl (Sarandon), offers to provide a car and a wad of cash, they hit the road together.

Grandma is off her meds, on the booze and into hooking up. Granddaughter is into self-pity and feigned self-confidence, and neither is working out for her. A draggy and cringe-inducing segment introduces love interests (Mark Duplass and Gary Cole) for both women but can’t decide who’s married and who’s not.

The women lack chemistry, their conversations lack energy; Tammy shows off on a jet ski; they go to jail, where Pearl’s feet swell up. A robbery segment has some funny lines, but they were all shown, to better effect, in the trailer.

If you need further proof that this movie is a mix of miscellaneous ideas, consider: We end up at a Fourth of July lesbian picnic with a Viking funeral. There, Pearl’s friend Lenore (Bates) explains life’s lessons to Tammy. The movie is now trying for poignancy; it’s too little, too late, too obvious.

“Tammy” is proof of a number of things McCarthy should agree to: She can’t keep making the same movie and expect audiences won’t realize it. She needs a new character; she’s funnier when she’s part of an ensemble, when the movie’s full attention is not on her.

And she needs to work with writers who aren’t her and her husband. Here, they’ve overwritten a predictable role for her—and underwritten roles for everyone else.

Faxon and Collette spend their brief screen time frowning, looking tentative. Bates delivers sentimental claptrap that even she has heard a million times. Janney is always exasperated; Oh is trying to look concerned.

Cole just hangs around acting “manly,” while Duplass has the tongue-hanging-out look of a puppy dog smitten by Tammy, wanting to be adopted.

Sarandon goes through the motions, but she never really finds the person in this role. She never convinces us she’s free- spirited, drunk, loving, likable—or anything other than someone along for the ride.

And, if she really is “a severe diabetic who needs her meds,” how can she be off them— and on alcohol—for the entire movie? And how can Tammy’s car, smashed by a deer, appear untouched when they finally head to Niagara Falls?

One answer: The script hopes you don’t notice. And here’s something else you may not notice: This movie thinks it’s a comedy.


 

 

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