Good look with that one, Amy
Too much guff is only just funny enough
AMY Schumer’s boundary-pushing TV sketch show and filthily funny, self-written film Trainwreck, made her one of her generation’s most outrageous comics.
With her talent for slapstick, I knew movie offers would come flooding in.
But I didn’t expect her to agree to a 12A-rated chick flick.
She raises five or six laughs in I Feel Pretty, but it feels like the edgy comic has been forced into a very square hole.
This is one of those schmaltzy rom-coms that is engineered to deliver a message. This week’s lesson is about self-confidence. Women need to stop worrying about the size of their backsides and be themselves.
Looks aren’t important. Believe in yourself and you can achieve anything.
These are the bare bones of the self-help guff Renee (Schumer, inset) spouts at the end.
As she delivers it while launching a new brand of cosmetics, you might find it a bit hard to swallow, but Schumer has done enough to keep us onside.
We meet Renee doing stuff online for Lily LeClaire, a highbrow New York make-up firm, run by helium-voiced superwaif Avery LeClaire (Michelle Williams).
Renee has low self-esteem due to a moronic belief that only beautiful people are happy. She also dreams of escaping her job to work as a lowly paid receptionist in the glamorous office upstairs. Renee, it seems, isn’t the fullest tube on the make-up table.
Then an accident at a spinning class turns her life upside down. After banging her bonce, Renee is convinced that she is the most beautiful woman in the world. “I look Kardashian – one of the Jenner ones!” she screams.
For here, writer/directors
Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein will riff on the bodyswap comedy, albeit one that is playing in their heroine’s head.
I could just about buy the transformation – a head injury is, I suppose, a bit more realistic than a magical wishing well – but I didn’t find Schumer’s confidence as outrageous as I should have done.
The comic is maybe a few pounds heavier than your typical rom-com queen, but she’s hardly an ugly duckling. Still, I doubt anyone else could have played this set-up for such big laughs.
There’s a very funny scene where she thinks an unassuming chap (Rory Scovel) is hitting on her and bullies him into going out with her. To his horror, she then interrupts the date by entering a bar’s bikini contest which she nearly wins by performing a strangely endearing erotic dance.
Her new-found confidence also makes her a big hit at work. After she bags the receptionist’s chair, Avery starts consulting her on a new downmarket “diffusion line”.
But before an inevitable second bump brings her back to earth (come on, you know it’s coming) she needs to learn a couple of life lessons. After abandoning her loyal pals (Aidy Bryant and Busy Philipps) – the cardinal sin of the chick flick – she realises friendship is more important than any glitzy party.
When a model (Emily Ratajkowski) tells her she has her own self-esteem issues, the dolt finally twigs that beauty doesn’t necessarily lead to happiness. Schumer probably needed to receive a swift kick up the backside more than a bang on the head.
This is just about funny enough, but she really needs to start writing again.