Little vigor in Life of the Party

Melissa McCarthy in Life of the Party. Image courtesy Warner Bros.

It’s incredibly perplexing watching Melissa McCarthy the writer completely fail Melissa McCarthy the actress in Life of the Party. McCarthy as an actress can be a gifted performer, capable of injecting excitement into weak material while delivering some quality pratfalls. McCarthy the writer is the type of person who gives herself terrible material to work from. It’s the great struggle of Life of the Party, watching McCarthy battle McCarthy to win the viewer’s hearts and minds. For the most part, McCarthy the actress rarely wins. To be fair, McCarthy shares screenwriting credit with her husband Ben Falcone, who also directs the film. (At the least, Life of the Party is a family affair.) Together, they have written a bland, often uninteresting comedy with just a glimmer of interesting concepts. 

 

Life of the Party is about as basic as a college movie can get, with McCarthy’s newly divorced mom deciding to enroll at the same college as her daughter (Molly Gordon) to finish her degree. The premise has worked before with Rodney Dangerfield in McCarthy's role, although Dangerfield had the advantage of a random, brilliant cameo by Kurt Vonnegut. McCarthy has Christina Aguilera, which is not an upgrade. That the movie doesn’t really do anything interesting with this idea is not surprising. But the premise isn’t what ultimately fails Life of the Party. Rather, it's an exposition heavy script littered with plot holes and some pretty weak jokes.

Exposition is pretty much the only reason the audience knows what is going on at any given moment. Some exposition is fine and necessary, but Life of the Party overloads on it, using asinine statements to reflect the passage of time and character status. Aside being a sign of some very bad writing, it also reflects an absence of creativity from McCarthy and Falcone, who have an entire college campus and a myriad of methods (signs, events, holidays) to indicate the passage of time. Good movies don’t state that it’s Tuesday, they show it.

Even with all the exposition Life of the Party is still a conundrum. This is one of those “why” movies in which a person throws their hands in the air and asks why something is at it is. The characters don’t make bad decisions as much as they make bizarre and awkward ones, doing things few rationale humans would opt to do. And the exposition the film clutches too even refutes some of the action shown on screen. There's a whole speech in which Gordon rants at her mom for not taking college seriously enough, despite the movie going out of its way to show McCarthy as an excellent student. That rant by Gordon's character is part of a poorly represented character arc between her and McCarthy, one of the many little stories the movie picks up and either drops or tells poorly. Gordon’s story is the most egregious, given how quickly she goes from loathing her mom’s presence on campus to embracing it before hating it again. Nothing is really earned in this movie; it’s just there.

Life of the Party is not a good or even particularly mediocre movie, but it isn't an abject failure either. A couple of jokes land in interesting enough places to earn a chuckle or two. Maya Rudolph and Stephen Root are both treasures, with Rudolph earning the biggest laughs of the movie by just being herself. And running just behind the background of McCarthy's flat shenanigans is a way more interesting movie starring Gillian Jacobs and Heidi Gardner. Their one brief interaction has the weirdest vibe to it, and each character is weird enough to belong to a moderately twisted dark comedy that wrings laughs out of their respective kookiness. It could be either a mark of Jacobs and Gardner taking what they had and running with it, or perhaps a sign that Falcone and McCarthy have a hidden, weird sense of humor just waiting to come out.

Alas, the oddities are left behind a mundane and uninteresting movie about self-discovery, one in which McCarthy has to undergo a makeover to find social validation. Life of the Party fleetingly allows its characters to be unique and fun, only to put on the brakes and go back to some boring, poorly developed point. For all the effort McCarthy clearly puts into her performance, she constantly shoots herself in the foot with poor dialog and jokes that meander to nowhere. McCarthy just doesn’t isn’t a talented enough writer to write for herself.

Review: Two out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 105 minutes

Genre: Comedy

Ask Away
Target audience: Fans of Melissa McCarthy.

Take the whole family?: The content gets a skosh risque for young kids. And, really, this isn't interesting enough for them anyway.

Theater or Netflix?: Just wait for a streaming option if you want to see it.

How is Ben Falcone as a director?: Based on this film not good in the least. Falcone's style lacks individuality or personality, along with any interest in using the camera to tell a joke. Falcone seems to prefer to point the camera and let things happen, which is a terrible way to direct a comedy.

Watch this instead?: Back to School isn’t the greatest film, but Rodney Dangerfield sells the heck out of that material. The best option is to watch the classic Simpsons episode Homer Goes to College.

They ain't afraid of no ghosts

Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Kristen Wiig and Leslie Jones in Ghostbusters. Image courtesy Columbia Pictures.

Before diving too deep into this review, I have to state for full disclosure that I worked on Ghostbusters as an extra when it filmed in Boston. I'm actually visible on screen during two shots at a concert if you keep your eyes open, and I was paid to work on it. I'm opting to review this though because I feel I can separate my involvement during filmmaking from any critical thoughts I have about the film itself. Also, any bias I have for the film is rooted heavily in childhood adoration for the movies, cartoons, toys and everything else Ghostbusters related. The only reason I signed up was an affinity for the franchise. In the end, it's nostalgia that shifted my view of the new Ghostbusters toward favorable, despite a few glaring flaws the film doesn’t recover from. It's not my longing reflections into the past that fuels the positivity; it's for the girls in the audience who really, really need role models like the four women who fight against the afterlife and a society in which its simpler to describe women as crazy than correct. I have a number of great memories tied to this franchise not just related to watching it, and it's nice to know that a lot of kids will have their own in the coming decades.

Still, this is not a particularly excellent film. Paul Feig's reboot, which stars Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon as the eponymous ghoul fighters, has one enormous flaw that filters down to create smaller problems that result in an unexpectedly rough Ghostbusters experience. The central issue is a product that clearly shot to be longer than the shade less than two hours it ended up being, but was edited down to a more digestible run time. Whoever edited this film had to eliminate a substantial amount of material, but the film wasn't cleanly put back together after the hacking and slashing ended. It leads to a number of uncomfortable segues, truncated exchanges, far too fast cameos, scenes that sometimes end on off beats and jokes that fall flat.

What would have been the central character arc of the film, a reunion between Wiig's disgraced scientist Erin Gilbert and her former best friend Abby Yates (played by McCarthy), is brought up and then put on stasis until it is magically brought up again as a motivating factor at the end. The relationship is not captured as overly tense, nor do the two ever have a true reconciliation over what was a friendship ruined; even the rift between them is never explained at length. Ghostbusters has a habit of making things pop up and then go away for a spell before cropping up again. The crew's dimwitted secretary (played by Chris Hemsworth) shifts from bored and unqualified to answer phones to super eager to be a Ghostbuster without ever expressing a desire to become one earlier. Even the film's villain (Neil Casey) drifts in and out, his intents explained through exposition and mutterings by the character himself. There is enough underlying plot and story to indicate Feig and fellow writer Katie Dippold had something deeper planned out for this project; they just seemed to run out of the time they needed to make it come to fruition.

But just enough success creeps out between the off moments to make Ghostbusters a perfectly serviceable summer flick. The film's commentary about the additional hurdles women face when venturing into uncharted fields is valid and underrepresented in cinema. Feig has also done the Lord's work in unleashing the wonderful insanity that is McKinnon upon theater goers. She shines as off-kilter and very flirty (at least toward Wiig) scientist Jillian Holtzmann, who conveys much through a sly glance and a subtle line reading that registers just enough before fleeting through the mind. Jones, as former MTA agent Patty Tolan, sneaks in a few laughs as well from her character's perpetual incredulous reactions to the phantasmagoric events around her. (Wiig and McCarthy seem to have the most difficult time with the material.)

It is a little unfair to Ghostbusters or any film to say it needs to exist despite being a sometimes funny but very flawed film, but it kind of is necessary. The little girls with the proton packs in the theater falling in love with the Ghostbusters (they adored Holtzmann) deserve positive characters to emulate like I did as a kid. Even if the reboot isn't necessary, a film featuring four comediennes playing scientists whilst fighting against the sexism they face daily is a hugely important thing to have. Besides, this movie isn't any worse than Ghostbusters II.

Review: Three out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 116 minutes

Genre: Comedy

Ask Away

Target audience: People who enjoyed the original and young girls searching for role models.

Take the whole family?: Some of the ghosts get a little freaky looking, but it is mostly harmless for kids ages 8 and up.

Theater or Netflix?: As long as its a matinee, theater is an acceptable alternative.

Who is your favorite Ghostbuster?: Bill Murray's Dr. Peter Venkman is far and away the best Ghostbuster; a charming rogue who always has the perfect comeback. Reality has taught me I can never be Venkman – I'm probably more of a Ray Stantz – but it doesn't hurt to dream.

Watch this as well?: Definitely the original Ghostbusters, which Murray absolutely steals. One of the animated shows that came about from it, The Real Ghostbusters, has several entertaining and interesting episodes, although most of those came before Dave Coulier replaced Lorenzo Music as Venkman.