Screened Out – Tammy

[three-star-rating]Melissa McCarthy, Susan Sarandon, Toni Collette, Allison Janney, Mark Duplass, Gary Cole, Kathy Bates, Sandra Oh, Dan Aykroyd[/three-star-rating]

The road-trip comedy Tammy was written by McCarthy and her husband (and the film’s director) Ben Falcone. They’re a very funny couple, but their writing feels like a few miles of rough concrete. You’ll laugh during this journey, but you’ll also miss important landmarks like character consistency, arc, and plot points building on one another.

Mostly, Tammy is a goofy summer comedy replete with enough “feel good” to make audiences smile. All the stunt casting either helps or hurts, depending on how often you want to be pulled out of the film, every time you see another familiar face. Often, it feels like they only could schedule some of these actors for one or two days of shooting.

Tammy (McCarthy) is the definition of a loser. In one day, she loses her crappy car, loses her job at a fast food joint, and loses her husband. She turns to mother Janney for support and love, only to be given a lecture. So McCarthy grabs grandma Sarandon – who has $6700 in cash and a working vehicle – and takes the “old” lady on a circuitous, drunken trip to Niagara Falls.

Already, some uneven road ruins this little flick. Right now, McCarthy is 43. Allison Janney was born just under 11 years earlier, and Sarandon was born in late 1946. Meaning Sarandon’s character had Janney at 14, and Janney’s character birthed had McCarthy when Janney was 10 years and 9 months. There is some effort to make Sarandon look older than she is, but it largely doesn’t work with how vital an actress she is.

There are also plot holes like potholes. McCarthy’s Tammy seems to be downright mentally handicapped at the beginning of the film – she doesn’t know who Mark Twain is. However, throughout the rest of the film, she has scenes where she is way smarter and more mature for no logical reason. Sarandon’s character is old and wise – except she’s been an alcoholic her whole life, yet she doesn’t seem to have done any permanent damage to herself or to her relationships. Doesn’t her family know this already? Has Sarandon successfully hidden her addiction for decades?

Tammy offers some moments of genuine sweetness; Bates’ small part is often affecting. Then again, if Tammy hasn’t seen Bates’ character for decades, where does this lady get off lecturing Tammy like she does? These speeches only serve the purpose of parsing out the film’s flimsy message.

[rating-key]

Still, you’ll laugh. Seeing idiot McCarthy and soused-up grandma Sarandon on the road has a certain delight. Drunken sex scenes between Sarandon and Cole are goofy fun. There’s also a certain bumbling charm to how McCarthy and love interest Duplass stumble into romance. Obviously, many of the comic bits were found through improvisation, and there’s a sense that McCarthy and Falcone both know how to make sure the best material gets onscreen.

Perhaps, though, they should understand that they’re not really writers – they’re comedians. They can drive the car, but they really should find someone else to map out the journey.