Trainwreck
Dir: Judd Apatow
2015
*
It seems that Amy Schumer's
main intention with her 2015 comedy Trainwreck was to reinvent a tired genre by reversing the
gender of the main characters. Unfortunately, she, Apatow and everyone
involved, misses the point. The problem with the crude romantic comedy
that deals with infidelity, monogamy and basic maturity
isn't with the character's sex, the problem is that they have been done to
death and were never very funny in the first place. Dick jokes were never
clever or particularly funny to those above the age twelve, so
vagina jokes aren't either. The idea that Schumer
has somehow reinvented or pushed certain
boundaries is ridiculous to me. The film is far too long considering most
of the script is ab-libbed, especially as very few of the cast are actually any
good at it. It's been done a hundred times before but it's never quite been as
poor as this. Many of the jokes are aimed at blacks, gays and the homeless. I'm
quite surprised by this, clearly meant to be satirical (but it's not) and I
don't think the film or Schumer is racist or homophobic, I just don't
think she's got much of an imagination or indeed, a funny bone. Seriously,
black jokes in 2015? It's rather telling when the funniest person in your
'comedy' is John Cena. The writing is fairly haphazard too, with the film
having very little structure to it. There is a running sub-scene throughout the
film of a movie playing in the background which stars Daniel Radcliffe as a
dog-walker and Marisa Tomei as a dog-owner. It's a black and white spoof of
either a Woody Allen type film or a Noah Baumbach romance, it's not really
clear and I'm amazed it made the final cut. In time-honoured
tradition in such overlong and boring 'comedies' as this, several celebrity
cameos are introduced (I understand the relevance of the sports-stars
but I have no idea why Matthew Broderick appeared?). This
provides familiarity, it's a cheap trick, because the sort of people who
enjoy this kind of film are generally the sort of people who will laugh when
someone tells them something is funny, rather than actually finding it funny
themselves, or people that still think rude words and genitals are the route of
all comedy. Even these people would have tired before the end and so familiar
faces are brought in to attract their attention. It's like a catchy song, you
may really really hate it but it's still catchy. Before anyone points out that
I must be sexist or that I must have a problem with female-lead films or female
comedians, I would like to point out that this is far from being the case. The
truth is I think there needs to be far more women in film and comedy of all
shapes, sizes and ages, but a poorly written and terribly unfunny film isn't
really going to help that happen. The finale is a puzzling anti-climax of
colour/movement/titillation that was pretty far from being the fairy-tale ending Schumer had hoped for. Somehow all is forgiven
when Schumer dresses and dances like a cheerleader, like that's an
acceptable form of apology for cheating on someone, with someone underage no
less, and generally being a horrible person to everyone. The relationship was
never even remotely convincing in the first place. Reverse the gender again and
see how acceptable people find it, either way, it’s bad writing and
not particularly funny (or shocking). I think women and cinema-lovers
deserve better personally.
