Trainwreck

By: John Delia

The very funny Amy Schumer steps into her first film screen role and she nails it.  The newcomer who has taken the television by storm with her bawdy “Inside Amy Schumer,” moves to a film venue with ease.  In Trainwreck she streaks into theaters all over America with a hilarious story and a support cast that keeps it all together to its predictable romantic ending.  Much like her TV show, the film uses many side vignettes that contribute to the central theme of trying to survive her screwed up life.  It’s a lot of fun for the ladies, but for adults only.

Living in New York many years after surviving her parents’ divorce, Amy (Amy Schumer) now works as a staff writer for S’Nuff, a noted magazine.  Her boss Dianna (Tilda Swinton) has been promising her an executive editor position if she can pull off a good story that will wow the publisher.  Following a meeting of suggested stories for the magazine, Dianna assigns Amy to an interview with Aaron Connors (Bill Hader) who is a sports doctor. Sports are a subject that Amy knows nothing about and she even wonders the relevance of it.

At her first meeting with Aaron, Amy blunders when asked about her sports knowledge.  This causes Aaron to get leery of the reporter’s ability to capture his personality for the interview, but he still thinks she’s charming.  When meetings start getting more social than businesslike for Amy and Aaron, Amy seeks help from her sister Kim (Brie Larson) and her alcoholic father Gordon (Colin Quinn) who’s in an assisted living home.

The film goes on from there involving one wacky situation after another. Director Judd Apatow knows how to handle comedy, but at times the movie hits snags with long winded snippets of meaningless, although funny, moments that draw out out his film.  Most romantic comedies do very well up to an hour and forty-five minutes in length, but Apatow stretches this one to over two hours. Admitted, Schumer can easily command the screen for the length of the film, but with comedy without action less would have been best.

I did like the film very much, maybe because I became a fan of her uninhibited raucous comedy when assigned the review of the DVD for her first and second seasons of her television show.  Openly politically incorrect, outwardly promiscuous she never holds back an outrageous comment.  She’s a 21st century comedian who has developed a persona for today’s women.  Much like Rosanne Barr embarrassed and cursed her way to the top of the ladder, Amy has the ability and modern times to take it even higher.  In Trainwreck she gives her best performance saying out loud what a lot of woman thinks in the situations she puts herself.  Being the writer of the film it’s an uncanny look into her candidly frank mind about sex, drugs and romance.

But, the film would have only been an extended TV episode of her show had it not been for the professional ensemble cast that makes the ordinary story, surprising good.  While most of the film gets predictable, it’s the interaction between characters that wins applause. Bill Hader brings out the best of Schumer with his deadpan comedy letting her to glom onto his sports medicine theme to practice her comedic charms. Hader’s character allows her humor to expound on comedy related to the likes of Lebron James, a bevy of cheerleaders and slam dunk basketball contest.  Yet it’s the romance angle that binds the two actors in this fun story at the movies.

Speaking of Lebron James, I’m totally blown away with his performance.  He’s very cool with his off-handed delivery of lines that up the laughter for the males who drop in to see the film.  I’m amazed that such a focused sportsman could work in comedy and become an important link in its success.  Most notables are just walk-ons that give a film a jolt, James goes one step further as an actor and makes his character likeable and an integral part of the story.

Trainwreck has been rated R by the MPAA for strong sexual content, nudity, language and some drug use.  The sexuality gets way over the top with some meaningless scenes, the nudity more for women’s delight and the alcohol and drug use over stated.

FINAL ANALYSIS: A fun film that should keep the ladies commenting way after the movie credits roll. (B-)