If you’re not familiar with Amy Schumer at this point,
you’re doing a good job of avoiding social media and pop culture in general –
congrats on that, you’re probably happier.
Amy is a stand-up comedian, who has rapidly moved to the forefront due
to her smart, funny, and very adult comedy central show – Inside Amy
Schumer (warning - below clip is uncensored!) :)
Judd Apatow is the writer/director of multiple comedies,
starting with the TV show Freaks and Geeks, then 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked
UP, Funny People, and This is 40. After
hearing an interview with Amy Schumer, he was inspired by her stories about
dealing with her dad’s illness, and asked to work with her. The result is Trainwreck – a movie that Amy
wrote and Apatow directed that is sort-of semi-autobiographical.
Schumer stars as Amy, a woman who has believed from 9 years
old that monogamy is not realistic, thanks to being told that directly by her
cheating father as he and her mother split.
Amy took that sentence to heart, and is currently living as the titular
‘trainwreck’. She has a great job and
apartment in New York City, but rarely sleeps with the same guy twice, and
seems to be working through most of the men in New York, believing that relationships
are for suckers. She’s working at a
men’s magazine for a Devil-Wears-Prada-inspired boss and is suddenly given an
assignment to interview a sports doctor who is about to pioneer a new knee
surgery for NBA players. During the
course of the interview, Amy spends the night with Aaron, the doctor, but
starts to fall for him, which is new for her and she finds it confusing and
off-putting while also trying to deal with her father’s failing health and her
sister’s marriage, step-child, and impending pregnancy. Eventually – Amy has to come to grips with
the fact that the way she was living was not actually all that great, and take
steps to grow up and take responsibility for her actions.
I expected the movie to be funny, but what I didn’t expect
was that it has a lot of heart, and quite a few genuinely touching
moments. I have found in several
previous Apatow movies that the female roles tend to be very
one-dimensional. Perhaps because Schumer
wrote this or perhaps due to the collaboration - this one does goes beyond
that. In terms of direction, Apatow was
good enough to let people do a lot of improvising, providing for a natural-ness
between all the cast members.
- Amy does a great job playing an exaggerated version of herself, and I was a little afraid that the movie would glorify her ‘trainwreck’ life-style. However, the movie never really makes that mistake. The constant drinking and partying really causes problems and makes her look like a terrible person. I thought that was a smart choice. Especially once she begins to realize that she is pushing away all the people who really do care about her, and she decides to start making some changes. I was really impressed, and I hope she gets to do more movies…of course, we’ll have to see how she does playing a character that is not based on her!
- SNL vet Bill Hader plays Aaron Conner, the doctor that Amy has to interview. Hader is wonderful at over-the-top comedy, but he’s even better playing the quiet romantic that is this doctor. He’s swept up in Amy’s zaniness, and falls for her pretty quickly. I loved their interactions, and I was impressed by his ability to quietly let Amy shine.
- Brie Larson plays Amy’s younger sister Kim. She didn’t get as indoctrinated by their father’s anti-monogamy statement as Amy, and is very happy with her husband and stepson. She also does a good job letting Amy be the big personality while she either quietly listens, quietly disagrees, or quietly gets hurt by what Amy says. I also enjoyed what appear to be genuine reactions by Larson to Schumer’s improvs. Mike Birbiglia plays her husband Tom, and he (and his sweaters) and his eerily polite son are mostly played for laughs – but each has a genuinely sweet moment or two.
- Colin Quinn plays the father, and he really uses his gruff irish-ness to its full potential here. Amy and Kim are constantly arguing about the quality of the facility that they move him into due to his progressing MS. He doesn’t stretch, he basically just plays Colin Quinn – but that really suits this role, and I felt that he did a great job, especially in his improved interactions with Norman Lloyd, a 100-year old actor who plays another resident at the home.
- A huge surprise in this movie is LeBron James (yes, that LeBron James). He’s playing an exaggerated version of LeBron James as Aaron’s best friend. He really steals every scene that he’s in – he’s really funny and has a natural ease with the other actors. Who knew he could be that funny? I especially love the scene where he insists that he and Aaron split the check for their lunch.
- Another surprise was John Cena playing Steven – a guy who thinks that he’s Amy’s boyfriend at the beginning of the movie, even if Amy considers him just a guy she’s hooking up with regularly. He is also really hilarious, and again – fantastic ease in the movie. His sadness as he realizes that Amy is not really into him feels genuine and really helps to make her look like the trainwreck she is portraying.
- Stand up Dave Attell plays Noam, the homeless guy who is always outside Amy’s apartment, who really does seem like more of a friend than most of her other ‘friends’.
- Vanessa Bayer, Randall Park, and Jon Glaser all play Amy’s co-workers, and they all get small scenes in which they get to be hilarious. Park suggests several odd story choices for the magazine, Glaser basically plays the same character he played on Parks and Rec, and Bayer gets yelled at for smiling too much.
- Ezra Miller plays intern Donald – and I’m mentioning him here only because he creeped me the hell out, and because Zach Synder has announced he is playing the Flash in their DC movie universe, which seems to me to be a huge mistake…but since I haven’t agreed with any choices Zach Synder has made yet…I guess that makes sense!
- The biggest surprise in this movie is Tilda Swinton (yes, that Tilda Swinton) as Dianna, the boss at the men’s magazine. She is almost unrecognizable, and is hilariously horrible in this role.
Overall, the movie was really funny, really enjoyable, and
surprisingly touching! It’s definitely a
hard R, and earns that rating, for example, you’ll see way more of John Cena
than you were expecting. Honestly – I
liked that, the men were definitely objectified, which is what women have been
in male-driven comedies for years. It
was very much a romantic comedy and did have a very predictable ending, but
again – romcoms are the one genre that’s acceptable. The happy, successful, single woman does not
exist in the romcom universe. I thought
everyone did a great job, and Amy was fantastic. I cannot wait to see what she does next. Also – I’d like to see LeBron do more
comedies. Honestly – I now want a
buddy-cop movie with him and John Cena, where Tilda Swinton plays their
commanding officer…come on – that’s genius right there.
9 out of 10 – really fantastic. Gained points for the fake movie Amy and
Steven go to see, “The Dogwalker” featuring Daniel Radcliffe and Marisa Tomei –
it looked terrible. Lost points for all
the drinking and pot-smoking Amy does…but then gained points for being one of
the only movies I’ve seen where people actually call her out for that nonsense,
and does not glorify that in any way.
Gained points for Swinton – Lost points for Miller. Gained all the points for LeBron and Cena.
Bonus Video 1: Just in
case you somehow missed it - Another
hard R comedy that cracked me up from Apatow as producer – Bridesmaids
Bonus Video 2: In
case you missed Spy earlier this year – it’s out in the budget theaters now…go
catch it.
Bonus Video 3: Cast interviews.
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