LIFE OF THE PARTY

Melissa McCarthy     Molly Gordon     Maya Rudolph     Christina Aguilera     Matt Walsh

     Life of the Party is pretty much in the same vein as other Ben Falcone/Melissa McCarthy creations, such as Tammy andThe Boss, and McCarthy’s films in general (i.e., This is 40, Identity Thief, and Bridesmaids).  In these, her character is buffoonish, destructive, and slapstick funny, with the emphasis on slapstick.  Here, I suspect that the husband-wife team (writers, with Falcone being the director) envisioned something different, in that McCarthy’s character has a few more redeeming characteristics (sympathetic, tolerant, with higher aspirations), and she isn’t quite as spastic (falling spectacularly again and again).  However, they couldn’t seem to resist inserting a couple of scenes where she does end up on the ground in one, and is completely destructive in another.

     The story opens with Deanna (McCarthy) and her husband Dan (Walsh) taking their daughter Maddie (Gordon) to college and dropping her off at her sorority house. Dan chooses this time to drop a bombshell, and Deanna is suddenly thrust upon her own devices.  As is typical for someone in this situation, she looks back over her life and decides to reverse a fateful decision she made earlier in life, to drop out of college in her senior year.  She will enroll and complete her studies to earn a degree.  

     There is one hitch in this—she’s returning to Decatur University where her daughter is. From here, Falcone and McCarthy weave a fanciful story that is not likely to happen here or on any planet in the universe.  That is, “Dee-Rock”, as she will now be called, becomes a hit on campus, with the total support of her daughter and her classmates and even the whole university! 

      If you can buy that, I’ve got a bridge…

     For years, I have been hoping that the talented McCarthy would reprise the career path that she started in Spy, which showed her talent as an actress in portraying an intelligent, strong woman who could be calculating and crafty.  When I interviewed Paul Feig, writer/director of Spy, he described her as “one of the funniest on the planet…She’s also like your best friend…not intimidating.”  His goal was to make Spy feel real, and McCarthy met his expectations.  She has not been in such a good movie since.

     Light comedy can be fun, and the kind of humor in Life of the Party certainly makes money, but I have a problem with its scenes written to draw laughs:  meanness of female college students, unwitting consumption of chocolates laced with marijuana resulting in destruction, college women not being able to do simple math, etc.  The whole premise that college students would be so accepting and supportive of the McCarthy character is far-fetched, let alone the idea that it’s a reasonable thing for a mother to be college friends with her daughter. Wha?....

     McCarthy is good at bringing this character to life; she is appealing, funny at times, heart-warming at times, and even sensible at times.  But how I wish she would move on to more substantive roles.  I would love to see her branch out into a strong dramatic character; she could do it!

     Supporting actors, such as best friend Christine (Rudolph) and daughter Maddie (Gordon) are great, but to me, the one who steals the show from others is Heidi Gardner as Deanna’s Goth roommate, totally neurotic, always deadpan, but with a soul.  She is so refreshing as a new kind of low-key character who whose demeanor and dialog makes you chuckle.

Melissa McCarthy in nothing new under the sun.

Grade:  D                                    By Donna R. Copeland

BRIGSBY BEAR

Kyle Mooney     Mark Hamill   Greg Kinnear   Matt Walsh   Michaela Watkins   Jorge Lendeborg   Claire Danes

     This film comes at you out of left field.  The basic story is interesting, in that a childless couple kidnapped a baby from birth, rearing it as their own.  However, they’re a bit off their rockers and keep the child fearful about the outdoors and other people, and locked in a basement, which begins the weirdness of the tale.  The next eerie part is that the father, a professor at a college, “produces” a children’s show for James (Mooney) called Brigsby.  James doesn’t know his father is producing it; he only sees the videotapes.  It goes on for years until James is a young adult, who is completely enamored of the show.  The parents even create an audience that makes it seem like the show is a major hit.

     This goes on until the astute detective Vogel (Kinnear) becomes suspicious of some of the father’s actions, and discovers James’ true parents before he was kidnapped by the Mitchums.  He breaks this news to James gently and then connects him with Greg (Walsh) and Louise (Watkins) Pope.  This will be a difficult transition because James has not been out in the world before and appears to be much younger than his age, the Popes are nervously trying their best to make him feel welcome—not their daughter, who shows understandable ambivalence toward him—and James’ primary interest is in the Brigsby Bear saga.  When he finds out from his new friend Spencer (Lendeborg) that anyone can make movies, he becomes obsessed with continuing the saga on his own.  The problem with the latter is that all the props are being held by the police as evidence in the prosecution of the Mitchums.

     The rest of the film is about James’ continuing orientation to the real world and his new family’s getting used to him; his and Spencer’s and their friends’ efforts to get actors and props, resulting in James’ incarceration in a mental hospital; and how all this gets worked out.

     Many of the filmmakers (director Dave McCary, writers Kyle Mooney and Kevin Costello) have been associated with the television show “Saturday Night Live”, and this movie seems like an extended version of one of their skits with its fancifulness, its raw humor, and thinness in substance.  For example, the idea that someone with James’ history could suddenly become a moviemaker with a hit is fanciful.  Raw humor occurs when a young woman (maybe even a high school student) seduces him at a party, which does not end well, partly because someone gave him a drug.  Real substance is lacking, in that it’s not clear what the point of the film is (no underlying principle or thought), and there are obvious omissions, such as James—who had a very positive relationship and bonding with the Mitchums—experiences no grief in being separated from them.  It happens quickly, and he is informed by a police detective instead of someone skilled in that type of work.  There was some promise in the Popes’ engaging a therapist (Danes) to help James, but she wasn’t skilled either; she’s a typical Hollywood invention of a therapist.

Brigsby Bear is an extended Saturday Night Live skit not ready to be a feature length movie.

Grade:  D+                                    By Donna R. Copeland