K-SCORE: 78
Director: Judd Apatow
Writer: Amy Schumer
Starring: Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, LeBron James, Tilda Swinton, Colin Quinn
Spoiler Level: Moderate
“I laughed a lot watching this film and it was made in an era of comedies that seem to be encouraging me to bring emergency earplugs to the theater.”
Trainwreck, very clearly the brainchild of standup comic Amy Schumer, manages to insert a great deal of funny into an otherwise genre-molded rom-com story. To call the structure traditional is an understatement. It follows the guidebook step by step. The leads are a journalist for a magazine and her subject. Amy has a sister living a married life she struggles to understand and respect and an abrasive aging father who dies two-thirds of the way through. Just a quick skip past when the leads fall in love, they have a really big fight so it can be romantically reconciled at the end. There are montages both of Amy’s life sinking into despair and of her (sometimes literally) cleaning up as she tries to make it right again. So yeah… don’t watch Trainwreck for bold innovations in the genre or realistic commentary on the pitfalls of modern relationships.
“the MVP is Bill Hader”
But you wouldn’t. Of course you wouldn’t. You watch it for Amy Schumer’s comedy, silly professional athlete characters, and enough story and sentimentality for you to be invested. So in that sense it delivers. I laughed a lot watching this film and it was made in an era of comedies that seem to be encouraging me to bring emergency earplugs to the theater.
Amy herself is a wonderful if weird lead. She always seems to find a good percentage of success and failure in her gags and lines. If she says something awkward, only thirty percent or so is awkward so it’s not cringe-inducing. If she does something physical, it’s not wholly ridiculous to the point where it seems desperate for a laugh, but just a little ridiculous. I also like the character she develops who never wants to be mean and isn’t entirely dysfunctional, but merely doesn’t have a lot of respect for herself. Those elements lend themselves to a lot of hilarious moments like her stumbling home from Staten Island, sitting on the stoop with her latently gay muscle-man boyfriend, throwing up a little outside the surgery room, and running on the treadmill with the computer that tracks her movements. And there is a good number of more outlandish laughs - not so many it hurt - things like the condom story at the baby shower and the cheerleader dance/dunk attempt at the end. Those are hysterical.
LeBron and Amare Stoudamire’s roles are great additions. They aren’t overused but they’re more than cameos and their scenes are always funny. Amare’s hug is amazing as is LeBron’s desire to get his parking pass validated. My favorite moment in the whole thing is LeBron’s line, “Can I ask you a question? Don’t hurt him.”
Ultimately though, and this cheesily fits into Trainwreck’s theme, the MVP is Bill Hader. This is the best performance I’ve seen from him and I always think he’s good. He manages to create a character that is honest, helpful, and funny without being annoyingly altruistic or an obvious mismatch for the trainwreck that is Amy. He has a quick line delivery assessing and shredding Amy’s absurdity and lies throughout that should serve as a valuable lesson for writers and actors in the genre. Amy would say or do something to try to come off as more together or impressive and instead of letting these obvious fabrications fester and serve as the source for the dramatic fight at the end, he calls her out right away and decides there’s something about her he likes anyway. That is the platform for their relationship, the success of which is the most important aspect of the entire story. And Bill Hader is hilarious on his own when he needs to be. “Yep, I’m just writing ‘wrong knee’ on this one so we know. We’re going to slice this bad boy open.”
Amy Schumer’s comedy is an interesting and funny balance of level-headed and deluded, of functional and blundering, and with Trainwreck she proves she can definitely carry it over to film form and make people laugh a lot while telling a two-hour romance.
I was a little annoyed after she’s fired from her hurtful celebrity gossip magazine how quickly the character bounces back and sells her article to Vanity Fare. Where’s the years worth of rejections and desperate searching for an audience? I don’t have any of these trainwreck life habits and can’t get my life to montage its way to wonderful again, but that’s not a real criticism of the film. Just my rant about writing for a career and an explanation for why I didn’t really relate to a story that is largely comedic escapism.