Melissa McCarthy

Superintelligence (2020)

Superintelligence (2020)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, November 2020) It only took “Melissa McCarthy in a Ben Falcone film” to bring any expectations regarding Superintelligence down to a manageable level. The McCarthy/Falcone duo, married in real life, has a dismal track record on-screen: their movies are usually designed to showcase McCarthy’s increasingly overexposed comic persona, making everything secondary to sustained riffs on the same themes. Superintelligence, to its credit, takes a toned-down variation of this approach to the idea of hard-takeoff Artificial Intelligence, pitting “the most ordinary woman in the world” (McCarthy) against an AI pondering what to do with humanity. As a science-fictional plot device, “innocent decides the fate of humanity by their behaviour” is well-worn material—but as a Science Fiction critic on an extended sabbatical, I find quite a lot of value in seeing a comic take on the material, more as a marker of what a mainstream audience can be expected to absorb. Clearly, we’re at a point where few would be surprised to accept that an AI would be able to learn everything from us from our online behaviour, and reach us through the connected devices in our houses. Of course, Superintelligence sweetens/dumbs down the concept: this isn’t The Forbin Project, and so the AI is incarnated by the voice and occasional presence from James Corden, adding further comedy (some of it dubious) to the proceedings. The biggest ironic criticism that one can level at Superintelligence is that for a McCarthy/Falcone production, almost literally any actress in the world could have played McCarthy’s role—it doesn’t really rely on her persona, and, in fact, may be harmed by it. McCarthy as “the most ordinary woman in the world” is a boring waste of talent, even within the script’s expected infantilization of challenging ideas. The ending is never in doubt, nor are any of the subplot strands. Still, the film gets a few chuckles, and makes an exemplary case of how once-nerdy ideas get continuously absorbed in the mainstream until they become literally just jokes in service of an actress looking for a star vehicle. I didn’t dislike Superintelligence as much as I expected to, but it does remain a very safe, very mainstream comedy, almost to the point of being duller than anyone would have anticipated.

Cook Off! (2007)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2020) I can see bits and pieces of where Cook Off! could have been better. As a mockumentary taking on a cooking competition, there are clearly plenty of comic opportunities to seize. Unfortunately, writer-director-star Cathryn Michon casts her net too large in a 98-minute movie, with an ensemble cast that is too unwieldy to properly introduce before getting down to the necessities of plot. The film doesn’t quite get a chance to properly develop: the action is condensed in three days and too few events, and the characters step on each other’s toes in an attempt to get laughs. Then there’s the quality of the comedy that’s actually in the picture—while Cook Off! gets a few chuckles here and there, much of the humour feels needlessly laborious, stretched over too long a setup. It’s simply not at all funny despite the promising characters and situations. Even the conceit of having two rival newscasters at the cooking competition, leading to alternate takes on the events, is mostly left on the floor as a missed opportunity. The low-budget mockumentary conceit is better handled than most films of that type (much of the action takes place in a big room with cameras present), but there is still plenty of footage that should not logically exist due to any cameras being present. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Cook Off! is in its post-production history: The film was completed in 2007, shown at film festivals and then shelved for a full decade before popping up as VOD fodder and, now, Cable TV filler. One suspects that a minor role for Melissa McCarthy (then modestly known for her TV show roles, but nowhere near her post-Bridesmaids fame) has much to do in unearthing the film from the vaults. I’m still relatively sympathetic to the result, which does get a few smiles along the way and I’m curious to see what else Michon could go if given the proper means and a bit more focus.

The Kitchen (2019)

The Kitchen (2019)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, March 2020) Performative female empowerment, 1970s cosplay and antiheroic rhetoric smash into each other in The Kitchen, a crime thriller taking us back to 1978 NYC’s Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood to show how three mob wives turn to crime in order to make ends meet while their husbands are in prison. It’s no accident if the film happens to showcase three of the most notable actresses of the moments in a search for serious drama credentials: Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss, all thoroughly deglammed and relishing their tough-girl roles. Haddish arguably gets the most out of it: Moss’s dramatic credentials are solid and McCarthy’s been pretty good in off-persona dramatic roles, but Haddish’s career has been almost entirely comic to date, so there’s something new for her to do here. In bits and pieces, The Kitchen is fun: while the narrative is often ham-fisted in how to get from Point A to Point B, seeing our heroines discover some self-resourcefulness as underdogs is an engrossing crowd-pleasing arc. Writer-director Andrea Berloff has fun with her material, Margo Martindale has a good supporting turn and Trump gets a not-so-subtle slam in passing. Highlights include a romantic meet-cute in which a supporting hero (Domhnall Gleeson) meets one of the heroines by shooting her would-be rapist dead, then teaching her how to dismember the body and dump it in the river. (Dismemberment becomes such a recurring motif in this film that it becomes almost comic in its predictability—whelp, someone’s getting dismembered at the end of this scene!) Alas, this leads us to The Kitchen’s more vexing aspect, which is to say its problematic use of violence as empowerment. While the film does lead us closer to a realization that the real antagonists are male-dominated power structures, the underdog status of the heroines turns into hubris. With an ending that’s not as retributive as one could hope for, the film doesn’t even approach an argument that violence is not necessarily more acceptable when it’s perpetrated by women—hypocrisy becomes real in the film’s last-act ballet of revenge when the husbands are released from prison and the action goes all over the place. (Unlike other movies, The Kitchen is weakly-built enough that it does not earn its use of violence.) A few twists punctuate the end of the film, leaving an impression that there’s a better movie somewhere in The Kitchen that is not fully realized—and, in fact, may not be fully realizable at the moment where violence is portrayed as being good as long as it’s committed by the good people on the bad people.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, August 2019) Like many cinephiles, I was quite impressed when Melissa McCarthy suddenly became a comedy superstar thanks to a remarkable comic performance in Bridesmaids. It was an overnight success years in the making, thanks to several well-regarded supporting appearances in various projects, but it cemented her comic persona as that of an obnoxious loudmouth. That kind of comedy based on deliberate irritation, as many others can testify, is only good until you get overexposed and suddenly becomes a liability. So, it’s smart for McCarthy to try to switch her image before it’s too late. She went in that direction with her supporting role in St. Vincent, but it’s with Can You Ever Forgive Me? that she really takes the chance of a lead role in a very different register. Here she plays in a docu-fictive drama about Lee Israel, a difficult and down-on-her-luck writer who turns to celebrity letter forgery as a way to make money. It turns into a nice revenue stream, but ambition eventually gets the better of her as the forgeries are exposed and the FBI closes in. Where I found the film most fascinating, though, was in its immersion in the Manhattan literary culture of the 1980s, made of collectors, authors, editors and associated personalities. I was very, very amused to see an actor portraying Tom Clancy (as an insufferable bore, no less) show up in the middle of a party scene, and charmed at the depiction of the written-word ecosystem exposed bare. McCarthy is superbly restrained here, taking a frumpy middle-aged character with finesse and dignity. Considering the times we’re in, this won’t be the last film about fakers and con artists, but I can definitely stomach this one, and being able to like McCarthy’s work here is a good chunk of it.

The Nines (2007)

The Nines (2007)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, March 2019) It took me twelve years to make my way to The Nines, and I’m glad I eventually did. I guarantee you won’t guess where it ends from where it begins, as it starts with Ryan Reynolds playing an actor on house arrest, but then becomes weirder as clues accumulate that we shouldn’t take that reality for granted. Eventually, we end up in science-fiction thriller territory, with three stories crashing into each other in ways that are increasingly strange. It does make sense in the end, even though the final impact is lesser than could have been anticipated twenty-five minutes in. One good reason to watch The Nines is the number of pre-stardom actors showing up: Reynolds lends his charm to three linked roles, while Octavia Spencer uncharacteristically shows impressive cleavage, and most notably Melissa McCarthy shows up here as a rather sweet character before her post-Bridesmaids screen persona settled (at least temporarily) on an abrasive nature. Her stripped down, classically traditional performance will make converts of those who couldn’t stand her in the 2010s. Taking a step back, there’s a quite a bit of fun in putting the various said and unsaid layers of the story together—the “Nine” symbolism isn’t hard to see (although 9 as “I, X” or if you prefer “I, an unknown” isn’t dwelled upon) but the film has fun blending together acting, writing and videogames into a panopticon of assumed identities. I’m a bit annoyed that it took me twelve years to see The Nines—while it’s not the greatest film ever made, it’s a happy discovery and one that may play better now than in 2007 due to the rising fortunes of its stars and how we perceive them … adding another layer to writer-director John August’s film.

The Boss (2016)

The Boss (2016)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Video on Demand, July 2016) Five years after her breakout role in Bridesmaid, Melissa McCarthy has become an authentic movie star, to the level where she’s able to put together her own vanity projects. The Boss couldn’t be any more purely McCarthy, revolving around a character she created, co-written by her husband Ben Falcone (who also directs), and featuring her in a role that takes up most of the film. The result, on the other hand, may be too much McCarthy. While not a disaster, The Boss does feel meandering, overlong and curiously unfunny. While the structure of the script is conventional enough in a comic-underdog way, the rest of the film doesn’t come together. McCarthy’s character is unpleasant (although not as actively irritating as some of her previous roles), the jokes don’t reach for much and the surprises are few. Other players such as Kristen Bell and Peter Dinklage do their best to keep up, but this is the McCarthy show and while she’s OK as an actress, she gives herself no favours as a writer. Some bits work even then they feel familiar (such as the slow-motion girl scout fight sequence) while others just flop aimlessly. What’s unfortunate is that the McCarthy persona is fundamentally irritating, and pushing it too far ends up alienating viewers (See Identity Theft), while not taking advantage of it leads to boredom and restlessness. There’s an ideal balance to strike, but it’s not to be found in The Boss, which (at best0 merely works as a run-of-the-mill comedy.

Spy (2015)

Spy (2015)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Video on Demand, October 2015)  By now, the Bond spy film formula has been spoofed, lampooned and deconstructed so often (even within the Bond series) that Bond-parodies have become a sub-genre in themselves.  Spy arrives in this crowded field with a few advantages: Melissa McCarthy may have a divisive comic persona, but she’s absolutely shameless in getting whatever laughs she can, and when you have the production budged to get both Jude Law and Jason Statham as comic foils, it’s already a step up from the usual B-grade effort.  So it is that director Paul Feig tries his damnedest to deliver a polished Bond parody, and does score a good number of laughs along the way.  His action scenes may not be as good as they could be (although there is a pretty good kitchen fight late in the film) but Spy does have a reasonable veneer of big-budget polish.  McCarthy isn’t entirely annoying as a CIA desk agent compelled to become a field operative, but Jason Statham steals the show as an insane and ineffective parody of the kind of action hero he often plays.  (Rose Byrne and ‎Peter Serafinowicz also shine in smaller roles.)  Otherwise, Spy gets a lot of mileage out of combining puerile humor with its spy subject matter, although the deconstruction/reconstruction mechanism is very familiar by now.  It does feel a bit long (something that probably wasn’t helped by seeing the slightly-longer and more digressive “unrated version”) but there is a decent amount of plot to go with the improvised jokes.  While Spy doesn’t break as much tradition as it thinks it does, it remains a decent comedy, a fair showcase for McCarthy and a step up for Feig, whose direction seems to improve slightly with every film.

Identity Thief (2013)

Identity Thief (2013)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, October 2014) What happens when Hollywood’s insistence in showcasing an irritating comic persona runs into a complete lack of sympathy?  I’ll be the first to admit that Melissa McCarthy’s supporting turn in Bridesmaids was one of the best things about it.  But based on The Heat and now Identity Thief, it looks as if that kind of humor doesn’t work as a leading performance.  Once again, McCarthy finds herself playing an abrasive, brash and thoroughly unlikable character: an identity thief, living large on other people’s accounts while incidentally ruining their lives.  Well, I’m not laughing.  Of course, thing being a bog-standard mainstream Hollywood comedy, we know what’s next: rehabilitation of her character through even worse antagonists, pitiable childhood trauma, deep-seated sweetness and out-of-character heartfelt actions.  Well guess what, Hollywood: I’m still not playing along.  That character remains unlikable throughout, and much of the film follows along with it.  It doesn’t help that Identity Thief remains by-the-numbers as a road movie featuring opposites: the plot beats are always obvious, and nothing makes the material rise above mediocrity.  Too bad; I really like Jason Bateman as the straight man, there are plenty of interesting actors buried in secondary roles (from Genesis Rodriguez to Robert Patrick to John Cho) and the film is directed cleanly by Seth Gordon, with even a spectacular car chase midway through to keep things interesting.  (But then again, mid-movie car chases have becomes something of a fixture in recent mainstream buddy comedies, and I’m not sure why.)  Identity Thief earns its audience’s antipathy early on and never lets go –by the time it’s over, we’re just glad it’s over.

The Heat (2013)

The Heat (2013)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, August 2014)  It’s almost liberating to realize, shortly into a film, that you’re not the target audience.  It’s a realization that frees you from the burden of trying to like the movie: Once you realize it’s aimed at someone else, you can become as dismissive as you can.  So it is that comedy The Heat is really aimed at another kind of audience.  While I’m left uncharmed by Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy, I can remind myself that the movie is for someone else.  I can criticize the dumb humor, unlikable characters, simplistic plot points and lazy witless approach and who’s going to stop me?  The movie is made for someone else.  Overlong, repetitive and unnecessarily gruesome?  Not. For. Me.  I can find peace with The Heat as long as I remind myself that I shouldn’t be watching it.  This isn’t meant to be a solid procedural cop drama: it’s a high-concept (Bullock reprising Miss Congeniality!  McCarthy being as rude and foul as she can be!) executed just well enough by director Paul Feig to ensure that the target audience feels that it got what it wanted.  It turns out that I like McCarthy a lot less in lead roles than in supporting turns such as Bridesmaids, and the tonal problems with the script frankly pale besides its unpleasant atmosphere.  I suppose that I should feel satisfied that this is a female takeover of a typically masculine film genre.  I should probably be happy that a performer as unorthodox as McCarthy gets a big leading role.  But somehow, as The Heat plays out, I’m left out in the cold and unsatisfied by the results.  But, oh yes, this isn’t for me.

Bridesmaids (2011)

Bridesmaids (2011)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In theaters, June 2011) There’s definitely something refreshing in seeing a women-centric film trying to one-up the boys in the R-rated comedy department: Bad language, worse behaviour and gross-out gags aren’t the sole province of frat-boys, and seeing Bridesmaids trying to be outrageous carries its own doubtful freshness.  I just wish the result would have been consistent, because the entire movie veers between downbeat humiliation and all-out outrageousness.  The pacing of the film, particularly in its first half, seems slack to the point of obnoxiousness: mini-sketches go on for far longer than the joke is worth (ex; one-upping memories of the bride-to-be at the engagement party) while the story advances with little wit in its editing.  (Things change, a bit, with the trip to Vegas and the “trying to get a cop’s attention” sequence.)  It really doesn’t help that the script seems convinced of its ability to combine the cringe-worthy story of a woman hitting bottom while still flying off in far less subtle bursts of crass comedy. Character-driven comedy doesn’t always mesh well with pratfalls and crude silliness, and Bridesmaids shows why: By the time the heroine trashes a sumptuous bridal shower, we’re cringing rather than enjoying the self-destructive nature of the act.  (It’s also annoying that at times, the film seems to ape Saturday Night Live, not only in dragging scenes longer than they should be, but building the film as a series of sketches.)  Dramatically, the self-destructive lead character is too annoying to be fully sympathetic and the film seems so intent on chronicling her downward spiral that it doesn’t provide much in terms of payoffs.  Still, even with mixed feelings about the film in general, I still laughed a bit too much to be entirely dismissive: While Kristen Wiig is better when she’s acting seriously than when she’s trying to mug for the camera, Melissa McCarthy steals practically nearly every scene she has, Wendi McLendon-Covey and Ellie Kemper are both under-used and I’m already on record since Idiocracy as being happy to watch Maya Rudolph in just about anything.  There are a few funny lines, successful sketches (the airplane sequence, overlong but ending on a high note), silly sight-gags and absurd non-sequiturs to qualify Bridesmaids as a comedy when it’s at its best –the problem is the time in-between, stuck watching the protagonist as she digs herself deeper in trouble.  Those don’t belong in the same movie.  Where’s a competent script editor when you need one?