Trainwreck (15.)
Directed by Judd Apatow.
Starring Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Brie Larson, Colin Quinn, Tilda Swinton and LeBron James. 125 mins.
Trainwreck is like a stand up comedy routine that has inexplicably gained a cast list. It is very funny and packed with talented (and underexposed) performers playing roles rounded enough not to just feel like they are there only as set ups to a punchline. But, even so, it is like you are just hearing one voice telling variations on the same joke for rather too long.
The voice is that of Amy Schumer, a comedienne little known outside the States who has written her own big break in the movies, a disguised romcom in which she plays a promiscuous professional lady: as Frankie Howerd once put it, “the original good time, had by all.” She is horrified at the prospect of monogamy until she meets a sports doctor played by Bill Hader. Almost all the jokes are ones of inappropriateness starting at the beginning with a childhood flashback to her father (Quinn) lecturing her and her sister about why he and mummy are getting divorced and outlining his belief in the impossibility of monogamy using an analogy about playing with dollies.
Now there's something rather smart about the way that sequence is used to start the film with a big laugh that both establishing the film's tone and explaining the lead character's psychological make up. But the film is like a boxer that only has one punch. You feel it when it lands but after a while you see it coming and it loses its sting.
Schumer is a bit of an acquired taste, and at times she can be like super annoying. (But at other times quite endearing.) Still, she writes strong roles for her supporting cast, which includes a storming appearance from an unrecognisable Tilda Swinton. Opposite her, Hader, pulls off the tricky task of making a nice and decent funny. On the downside the film is unusually cluttered with American references and celebrity cameos that are mostly lost to viewers over here. That said LeBron James, who apparently is one of America's biggest sporting stars (he is a practitioner of the tall men bouncing and jumping game) displays a really nice comic touch in his role.
Trainwreck is a film full of promiscuous couplings and ill-advised hook ups and I'm thinking, just once couldn't someone match Apatow up with a strong editor. Not since his début the 40 Year Old Virgin has he managed to bring a film in at under two hours. What is this obsession with two hour plus comedies? It is possible to make a worthwhile two hours comedy but not if your films are as bland and scrappy looking as Apatow's or rely almost entirely on verbal humour. Trainwreck is a funny film, and I laughed long and loudly at numerous points but once it passed the 90 minute mark and there was no sign of a conclusion I was pretty much all laughed out – largely on principle.
Trainwreck (15.)
Directed by Judd Apatow.
Starring Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Brie Larson, Colin Quinn, Tilda Swinton and LeBron James. 125 mins.
Trainwreck is like a stand up comedy routine that has inexplicably gained a cast list. It is very funny and packed with talented (and underexposed) performers playing roles rounded enough not to just feel like they are there only as set ups to a punchline. But, even so, it is like you are just hearing one voice telling variations on the same joke for rather too long.
The voice is that of Amy Schumer, a comedienne little known outside the States who has written her own big break in the movies, a disguised romcom in which she plays a promiscuous professional lady: as Frankie Howerd once put it, “the original good time, had by all.” She is horrified at the prospect of monogamy until she meets a sports doctor played by Bill Hader. Almost all the jokes are ones of inappropriateness starting at the beginning with a childhood flashback to her father (Quinn) lecturing her and her sister about why he and mummy are getting divorced and outlining his belief in the impossibility of monogamy using an analogy about playing with dollies.
Now there's something rather smart about the way that sequence is used to start the film with a big laugh that both establishing the film's tone and explaining the lead character's psychological make up. But the film is like a boxer that only has one punch. You feel it when it lands but after a while you see it coming and it loses its sting.
Schumer is a bit of an acquired taste, and at times she can be like super annoying. (But at other times quite endearing.) Still, she writes strong roles for her supporting cast, which includes a storming appearance from an unrecognisable Tilda Swinton. Opposite her, Hader, pulls off the tricky task of making a nice and decent funny. On the downside the film is unusually cluttered with American references and celebrity cameos that are mostly lost to viewers over here. That said LeBron James, who apparently is one of America's biggest sporting stars (he is a practitioner of the tall men bouncing and jumping game) displays a really nice comic touch in his role.
Trainwreck is a film full of promiscuous couplings and ill-advised hook ups and I'm thinking, just once couldn't someone match Apatow up with a strong editor. Not since his début the 40 Year Old Virgin has he managed to bring a film in at under two hours. What is this obsession with two hour plus comedies? It is possible to make a worthwhile two hours comedy but not if your films are as bland and scrappy looking as Apatow's or rely almost entirely on verbal humour. Trainwreck is a funny film, and I laughed long and loudly at numerous points but once it passed the 90 minute mark and there was no sign of a conclusion I was pretty much all laughed out – largely on principle.
