imperfection is perfection
Sporadic film reviews by a wanna-be filmmaker
TRAINWRECK [2015]
Directed by Judd Apatow
Written by Amy Schumer
Starring: Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Brie Larson, Colin Quinn, John Cena, Tilda Swinton
When this movie was released I couldn’t find a negative view on it. I’m sure they were/are out there, but from what I read, including my local film ‘zine, it was a 10/10 comedy, one that pushed boundaries and was the best comedy of the year. I’ve never seen Amy’s television show so I wasn’t sure what to expect regarding the humour, but I had heard that it had slight feminist overtones and had been written by Amy herself. I took my sweet time but I had to check it out. It sounded different.
In case you missed the basic plot, Amy is a ‘sexual women’, which I suppose is a nice way of saying she sleeps around. Not only that, but she is a bit of a bitch about it. The beginning of the movie is essentially a montage of her stringing guys along who are perhaps expecting more, especially John Cena’s character. I’m not sure how sleeping around is empowering for women, but good for her, she doesn’t care about the norms of society and is her own women, regardless of what her married sister tries to tell her. The image of her sister’s family doesn’t click with Amy at all, who shuns real relationships in preference for her care-free, partying lifestyle. She does what she wants to do. Initially, Amy is a strong if somewhat misguided character.
Amy is a career-orientated women; another good idea for her character, but I honestly can’t think of a worse way this could have been executed. Amy works at a magazine that is the equivalent of an FHM magazine – which in itself could be seen as taking advantage of women, as they are always plastered over every cover wearing barely a thing. Almost any other male dominated career would have been more appropriate! Apart from the porn industry I guess.
Her boss is a very two-dimensional character who possesses a truly repugnant attitude, with such fantastic lines as “I wouldn’t fuck that guy with your dick” while congratulating magazine pitches such as “You’re not gay, she’s boring” and “You call those tits?“. Oh, and she has a pitch of her own: “Does garlic make semen taste better?‘
All I can say is “wow”, and wonder what the reaction would be if a male character was the boss of the magazine in these settings, uttering these lines. Aren’t magazine pitches like these degrading women?? I’m not against feminism in any way, but goddamn! The atmosphere within Amy’s office seems completely at odds with the films intentions. The strong Amy we meet at the start of the film isn’t to be found in her workplace, as she listens to these disgusting magazine pitches without much of an opinion. And of course, she eventually meets a man she wants to be with, essentially erasing the strong personalty that had been built for her.
As for the comedy, let’s tick some boxes. Sex jokes? Check. Masturbating jokes? Triple check. This honestly feels like a conventional, low-brow comedy with a female lead instead of a male lead. Again, if that is a step forward for women, then I applaud it. Seeing more female directors and leading actors is truly great. But the movie could certainly have transpired in a way that stuck to its guns with the strong-women angle, while avoiding the cliches of typical romantic comedies. Sadly, it fails, as the second half of the film starts to feel very, very familiar. The ending is particularly cringe-worthy, one of the worst endings to a film I have ever seen.
HOWEVER, I must give credit to one scene, where Amy point outs that cheerleaders at a sporting event are essentially just gyrating for the males in the crowd to enjoy, and she yells something along the lines of: “You’re gonna lose us the right to vote!”
That was funny, appropriate, and I couldn’t have agreed more with the sentiment. If the movie had more material like this, it would have been a lot better. A film filled with material like that could have made for a classic, against-the-grain comedy.
For a comedy about sex that shakes things up nicely, I highly recommend The Little Death, which avoids cliches that have become so common in modern humour.
17 Comments on “TRAINWRECK [2015]”
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imperfection is perfection 
I sounds horrible. But what is Tilda Swinton doing in this?
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I’m not sure. Perhaps she jumped on board because it had feminist subtext, but like I said that goal was very poorly realised. As usual she was unrecognisable and did a great job acting, but god her character was awful!
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Bummer!
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It sounds really bad, glad I stayed away from this one!
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It really really is, I don’t know how it got good ratings. I’m guessing it was because of the feminist angle but like I say, they couldn’t have messed that part of it up more!
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Great review! I wasn’t expecting anything special and had some laughs with this one. I agree by the second half it falls into a familiar rom com, but for me it was enjoyable enough to keep watching. 😀
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Glad to hear you got a bit more out of this than me. I guess it reads like I HATED the film… I didn’t hate it, I was just very confused by its intentions and then how they went about it. I thought the acting was great and there definitely a few chuckles
Thanks for reading! 🙂
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Nice review Jordan. I really liked Trainwreck, though it does fall victim to cliched writing in the final act. I enjoyed LeBron’s role, I hope he does some more film work.
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LeBron was surprisingly good, I thought he’d be awful but he was certainly a lot better than Cena. His character got on my nerves a bit, but LeBron himself was great. Which is hard for me to say cos I’m a die-head Bulls fan and LeBron has kicked the Bulls out of the Playoffs at least three times! 😦
The cliched writing in the final act really reached its peak with that cheesy ending. And its a pity cos with the right execution, they could have pulled off a great comedy that totally goes against the norm. I was disappointed that Amy’s strong character disappeared almost immediately after meeting the doctor too, but ah well!
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I have no desire to see this Jordan, though I find Amy funny sometimes in interviews. “conventional, low-brow comedy” w/ a bunch of masturbation jokes? Meh, definitely NOT for me. I told you how Deadpool was super vulgar, sounds like this one is similar, but I was curious about that one as I have a penchant for comic-book movies. Not something I want to see again though.
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Yeah, this movie was just filled with vulgar jokes, but it had woman in major roles instead of males. I bet if it were the other way around this wouldn’t have gotten any rave reviews like it did.
I might go see Deadpool today, just for the hell of it 🙂
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This sounds like a shit movie.
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haha!! It very much is
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I only saw a clip of this movie with John Cena, and I just had a feeling it wasn’t for me.
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