Review of Tammy (2014) by Harry W — 22 Nov 2014

Although maintaining little expectation for its overall quality, as Tammy teamed up Academy Award nominated comedian Melissa McCarthy with legendary Academy Award winner Susan Sarandon, I had hopes for there to be some good comic chemistry between the two stars.

There is no story in Tammy. The film is in such a rush to push Tammy and Pearl out of Murphysboro that it cannot come up with a good reason to do so and ends up planting them firmly in generic roots from the get go. It is just a generic buddy road trip comedy which turns into nothing more than a single comedy sketch stretched over an extensive period of time and through various settings. It gets dull before the road trip even takes off which means that Tammy dictates that it will be bad before the movie even begins. The next step is sitting through the rest of it when the tale goes in stale and predictable directions without a single hint of creativity or originality. There are no surprises in Tammy aside from the fact that it is genuinely that short on script, and as the story progresses there is never a hint of life showing up. When it doesn't, it is unsurprising.

The script in Tammy is just dreadful. The biggest thing that the script in Tammy demands is for Melissa McCarthy to do nothing but a lot of swearing. The gimmick is slightly funny for a while even though it is repetitive and surrounded by a cheap story, but it wears thin very quickly. Tammy milks Melissa McCarthy's trademarks so hard that it almost turns her performance into a bad one. Luckily her energy is able to transcend that, but the material really makes an effort to drag her down. The fact that she can survive Tammy and still serve as a good lead is truly surprising because the quality of the "humour" in Tammy is just awful.

The jokes in Tammy are all excessively repetitive for the start of the film. It becomes a road trip film when the plot dynamics become truly ridiculous, and there is a very minor sense of entertainment in it because it finally takes the film in a less formulaic direction that it was already following, and from then on a surprisingly strong assortment of cast members begin to make appearances. But the jokes in the film do not improve. Eventually, Tammy dissolves into nothing more than a sentimental drama film against the backdrop of a comedy story. The problem is that there are many moments in Tammy that could have been really funny such as the scene where Tammy robs a Topper Jack's. This moment made me smile lightly, but after that all the attempts at humour essentially subsided. From then on, it didn't even try. The film diverts between being a crude comedy packed with swearing and cheap ploys at sentimentality which never really work or go anywhere. It is hard to find Tammy to be a touching film because it is so ridiculously stupid, even though Melissa McCarthy tries hard to make it about a likable character. When Tammy tries to be sentimental, it is just so vain that it makes the film seem worse for even trying. Tammy tries for sentimentality harder than it tries for laughs which is a serious issue considering that it is a comedy film. When the film goes for sentimentality, it does work as a turning point because that is where we see Melissa McCarthy put some depth into the role. But the thing is that Tammy is a comedy, it is supposed to be funny. The ultimate flaw is that it did not succeed as that. I smiled lightly once or twice during Tammy, but not at a single point did I find myself laughing. There is not enough emphasis on her chemistry with Susan Sarandon which defies one of my expectations from the film, and so the one thing that I really hoped to get some laughs out of was unsuccessful in Tammy.

Melissa McCarthy's leading performance is the only thing that makes Tammy a watchable film. After the lacklustre intro of the film, Melissa McCarthy manages to deliver a well spirited performance. Her ridiculous dedication to the part almost makes the film funny or touching in parts, even if there is so much attempting to sabotage that. Melissa McCarthy plays on her ability for slapstick humour in a decent way and uses her over the top line delivery so much that it is both hit and miss, but the one thing which proves really effective is how she handles herself dramatically. When Tammy senselessly dissolves into sentimental hokey tedium, Melissa McCarthy goes with it easily. She manages to deliver a performance which is subtly dramatic in an appropriate way and yet clear. She turns the once-annoying Tammy into a sympathetic figure which is impressive and shows that she maintains both comedic and dramatic talent as an actress by delivering both elements to her performance in Tammy. She stands out as the greatest aspect of the film because she leads it all with passion, both for the ridiculous nature of the comic plot and for the other characters whom she interacts with really well.

Susan Sarandon fails to bring much life into her part. She is a very sophisticated actress, but the material in Tammy is way too substandard for her because she is physically unable to make something funny out of a script that stupid. She still has the likable spirit there, but only during the dramatic scenes. In the humourous moments, Tammy is way too ridiculous to be up to her standard. Susan Sarandon delivers essentially the bare minimum of what Ben Falcone demands as director, and despite her extensive amount of acting talent, there is none of it in Tammy. Susan Sarandon simply does not work with such a poor script.

Kathy Bates is a truly welcome supporting presence. While her role is essentially solely predicated on her dramatic abilities, they remain as refreshing as ever. There is a moment in the film where she delivers a soliloquy which is sensible to the point of the story in a dramatic regard, and so in her small amount of screen time she really does her part. And Dan Akroyd's cameo is a nice touch.

So Tammy begins as an unfunny and repetitive comedy with a poor story and a lack of humour which later dissolves into an overly sentimental drama which fails to be touching, pausing momentarily to show off Melissa McCarthy's natural acting charisma.