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| Tammy review - Melissa McCarthy and Susan Sarandon play gran theft auto | Tammy review - Melissa McCarthy and Susan Sarandon play gran theft auto |
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| Is there a sororpack to go with Hollywood's fratpack? Since her supporting turn in Bridesmaids, that smart comic Melissa McCarthy is emerging as a key equivalent (along with Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Kristen Wiig and others); her latest movie happens to be co-produced by comedy's alpha-males Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. | Is there a sororpack to go with Hollywood's fratpack? Since her supporting turn in Bridesmaids, that smart comic Melissa McCarthy is emerging as a key equivalent (along with Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Kristen Wiig and others); her latest movie happens to be co-produced by comedy's alpha-males Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. |
| McCarthy stars and co-writes with her husband Ben Falcone, who directs. That round, pretty face with its poignantly muppety nose and chin is well suited to a classic type of pre-emptive ironic disdain which fails to protect against life's humiliations: the tears of rage of a clown. It also expresses vulnerability and intelligence — and those who remember McCarthy's performance in the cult movie The Nines with Ryan Reynolds will know that the same face can be sexy too. It's tempting to call it a female version of Seth Rogen's face or Jonah Hill's face: that is, their earlier, less sleek faces. Perhaps if Hollywood success exalts McCarthy in the same way, she'll get to glam up as well.She is Tammy, a character whose name may be intended to convey, subliminally, the blue-collar trials sung about by Tammy Wynette — although she is also, perhaps a bit worryingly, slightly similar to the sociopath crook she played in the ropey and far inferior comedy Identity Thief opposite Jason Bateman. | |
| After wrecking her grisly Toyota Corolla, Tammy loses her job in a fast-food joint due to a lateness incident that forms the crowning event in an escalating display of bad attitude. Her pompous boss demands she hand in her badge, like a disgraced cop, although Tammy points out that it is just a name tag which she David-Brent-ishly had to pay for in the first place.On arriving back home, unwontedly early, she discovers her husband Greg (Nat Faxon) not in flagrante exactly, but having an infuriatingly monogamous meal with their neighbour Missi, played by Toni Collette. With nothing left to lose, Tammy hits the road with her cantankerous alcoholic grandma Pearl (Susan Sarandon) who offers to put up cash and her car for this defiant road trip, being herself enraged at her daughter — that is Tammy's mom Deb (Allison Janney) — and her plans to put her in a home. And along the way, Tammy and Deb naturally have romantic adventures with men and learn some lessons. | |
| As these actors are respectively 43, 54 and 67 years old, it is perhaps difficult to see McCarthy, Janney and Sarandon as three generations of women. What is possibly just as difficult is telling whether this film is supposed to recall Sarandon's other odd-couple road movie appearance in Thelma and Louise from 1991, although she is once again the more worldly-wise partner. | As these actors are respectively 43, 54 and 67 years old, it is perhaps difficult to see McCarthy, Janney and Sarandon as three generations of women. What is possibly just as difficult is telling whether this film is supposed to recall Sarandon's other odd-couple road movie appearance in Thelma and Louise from 1991, although she is once again the more worldly-wise partner. |
| But Tammy is funny, and it has stamina. There are entertaining comedy-of-embarrassment touches. Tammy attempts to punch Collette's adulterous neighbour Missi, who blindly and incompetently lashes out: Tammy drops like a stone, simply because Missi accidentally managed to get her finger in her mouth for a second and Tammy screechingly complains that Missi has "scratched her tongue". It is a drolly managed instant of farce, and the audience could be forgiven for wondering if McCarthy might not be as well matched with Collette in some other film. | But Tammy is funny, and it has stamina. There are entertaining comedy-of-embarrassment touches. Tammy attempts to punch Collette's adulterous neighbour Missi, who blindly and incompetently lashes out: Tammy drops like a stone, simply because Missi accidentally managed to get her finger in her mouth for a second and Tammy screechingly complains that Missi has "scratched her tongue". It is a drolly managed instant of farce, and the audience could be forgiven for wondering if McCarthy might not be as well matched with Collette in some other film. |
| She has some nice moments with Sarandon herself, especially when they begin inevitably to bond. When challenged by her to name something impressive that she has done, Pearl sheepishly specifies watching Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon on TV, a name that appears to mean nothing to Tammy, but she is hugely impressed with the fact that Pearl once did it with one of the Allman brothers, and McCarthy adroitly conveys Tammy's sweet girlish intimacy confiding that she was once fingered by someone who could have been Boz Scaggs. | She has some nice moments with Sarandon herself, especially when they begin inevitably to bond. When challenged by her to name something impressive that she has done, Pearl sheepishly specifies watching Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon on TV, a name that appears to mean nothing to Tammy, but she is hugely impressed with the fact that Pearl once did it with one of the Allman brothers, and McCarthy adroitly conveys Tammy's sweet girlish intimacy confiding that she was once fingered by someone who could have been Boz Scaggs. |
| McCarthy masters an entertaining running visual joke that her character will always petulantly try to tip something over on her way out of the room, after losing an argument, even if it is just a matter of knocking over a salt cellar. It is all about low status and low self-esteem. McCarthy is very good at conveying self-hate, but a self-hate which can be alchemised, through comedy, into something gentler, more self-aware and more liable to be redeemed through love. Tammy meets a decent-looking guy, played by Mark Duplass, and awards herself a romantic moment with an attractive person in exactly the way that male comics have long been doing. Tammy may not a comedy masterpiece, but McCarthy has comedy star quality. | McCarthy masters an entertaining running visual joke that her character will always petulantly try to tip something over on her way out of the room, after losing an argument, even if it is just a matter of knocking over a salt cellar. It is all about low status and low self-esteem. McCarthy is very good at conveying self-hate, but a self-hate which can be alchemised, through comedy, into something gentler, more self-aware and more liable to be redeemed through love. Tammy meets a decent-looking guy, played by Mark Duplass, and awards herself a romantic moment with an attractive person in exactly the way that male comics have long been doing. Tammy may not a comedy masterpiece, but McCarthy has comedy star quality. |
| Tammy is released in the US on 2 July and the UK on 4 July • More on Melissa McCarthy | Tammy is released in the US on 2 July and the UK on 4 July • More on Melissa McCarthy |