Movie Review - Tammy

Tammy (2014)

Starring Melissa McCarthy, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, Allison Janney, Dan Aykroyd, Mark Duplass, Gary Cole, Nat Faxon, Toni Collette, Sandra Oh, and Ben Falcone

Directed by Ben Falcone

What an unfunny mess Tammy is.  Melissa McCarthy stars as the title character, a foul-mouthed, bellowing, and brash woman who comes home after being fired from her job at a fast food joint only to find her husband (Nat Faxon) canoodling with the next door neighbor (Toni Collette).  Obviously upset, Tammy leaves and heads two doors down to her mom's house where she demands to take her mom's car and drive far away.  While her mother (Allison Janney) understands her pain, she dismisses Tammy's dreams of starting anew, but her grandmother Pearl (Susan Sarandon) also wants to get out of Dodge and agrees to let Tammy take her car as long as she can tag along.  Tammy agrees and the two set out on a cross-country journey of discovery.

I think I mention this in every review of her films, but my introduction to Melissa McCarthy occurred when I watched the first few seasons of Gilmore Girls on tv.  I'm rewatching the show via Netflix and it makes me appreciate the sweet and charming persona that McCarthy can inhabit should she so choose.  So why does she choose motion picture vehicles in which she plays completely reprehensible, vile, vulgar, unappealing characters?  If she's trying to recapture the Bridesmaids magic that earned her a deserved Academy Award nomination, she's failing miserably.  There's nothing about the character of Tammy that makes you want to watch her.  She's slovenly sloppy, obnoxiously dimwitted, and ignorant to nearly everyone that crosses her path.  Spending ninety minutes with this woman is eighty-nine minutes too much.

McCarthy needs to seriously take a look at her choices and shake things up a bit.  She attempted that with an admirable turn in 2014's St. Vincent, but Tammy is an utter failure.  Written by McCarthy and her husband Ben Falcone, Tammy is one to avoid at all costs.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-

Movie Review - Enough Said

Enough Said (2013)

Starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, James Gandolfini, Catherine Keener, Toni Collette, Ben Falcone, Tracey Faraway, and Tavi Gevinson

Directed by Nicole Holofcener

Movies like Enough Said don't get made nearly enough nowadays.  I mean, honestly, when's the last time you've seen a romantic comedy focusing on normal folks in their late forties/early fifties falling in love?  It doesn't happen and maybe it should.  Writer-director Nicole Holofcener gives us two characters who are wholly relatable with whom, after a short ninety minutes, we long to spend more time.  What more can you ask for from a movie like this?  The characters make or break a movie like this and in Enough Said I wanted to continue alongside their charming journey to see where it will take them.

Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a masseuse who enjoys her job and loves her teenage daughter Ellen (Tracey Faraway), but finds herself missing that special someone after her divorce a few years prior.  Still, she's come to terms with the fact that love probably isn't in the cards for her.  When she accompanies her good friends (Toni Collette and Ben Falcone) to a party, she meets Albert (James Gandolfini), but doesn't find him attractive in the slightest, even telling him that to his face.  However, she decides to agree to a first date with Albert simply because she hasn't been on a date in quite some time.  While things don't go swimmingly between Albert and Eva, there's something there...that little indescribable spark.  They have much in common and, with both their daughters heading off to college in a few short months, they're in need of some companionship.

One of the biggest reasons Enough Said succeeds is because there's an awkwardness between Eva and Albert that Holofcener isn't afraid to dwell upon.  Things aren't precociously perfect or devastatingly awful between the couple as we often get in movies and choosing the middle ground and not one of the two extremes is a nice change of pace.  Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and the late James Gandolfini are huge keys to the film's success, utterly charming whether they're alone or together onscreen.  Gandolfini is the complete opposite of Tony Soprano here, abandoning any sense of that "tough guy" persona for which he's so well known and fully embodying the softy that is Albert.  Louis-Dreyfruss, heretofore known for her somewhat abrasively comedic roles on tv, takes on her first leading film role and has no problem whatsoever getting the audience to embrace her.  She's not a perfect mom and doesn't claim to be, but that makes her character all the more relatable.  Louis-Dreyfuss carries the movie without a problem and I'd love to see this down-home persona in more movies down the line.

There are moments in Enough Said that feel a little bit sitcommy -- particularly in scenes involving Eva's client Marianne (Catherine Keener) who just so happens to be Albert's ex-wife unbeknown to Eva who constantly has to hear Marianne spout off everything that was wrong with her former spouse -- but they're still funny and work overall in the grand scheme of things.  Kudos to director and writer Nicole Holofcener (who also directed Please Give which I enjoyed a few years ago) who has crafted a movie that both you and your parents and your grandparents can enjoy without being too cutesy for you or too raunchy for your grandma.

Lovely.  Charming.  Go see it.  Enough said.

The RyMickey Rating:  A-