Just saw the most iconinc heronine in the history of the romantic comedy genre--and it was created by a FIRST TIME writer! I'm talking the character of "Amy Townsend" in Universal Pictures' latest gem which is entittled, "Trainwreck" (2015: written by Amy Schumer, directed by Judd Apatow).
Laudy praise from a rom-com enthusiast, but is that justified? Well, lemme just say, we've come a long way since Meg Ryan set the bar back in the day.
Amy Townsend BETTER than "Lucy Elanor Moderatz" as played by Sandra Bullock in "While You Were Sleeping" (1995), better than "Marie" as played by Juliette Bincoche in "Dan in Real Life" (2007), better than Jenna Rink as played by Jennifer Garner in "13 Going on 30" (2004), BETTER than even Andie Anderson who you previously cited as the best female lead in the history of romantic comedies in this post! Well, yeah... in a way "Amy Townsend" IS the best. Not the funniest. Not the best acted. But CONCEPTUALLY the best and most daring rom-com staring heroine of all-time. I. LOVE. AMY TOWNSEND. CONCEPTUALLY. First time "feature" writer Amy Schumer really nailed this character. The movie starts out with her father explaining to his two pre-teen daughters that "monogomy isn't realistic" in leau of his divorse to his mother due to his straying ways. Then flashforward 23 years where we pick up his oldest daughter's destructive lifesyle of getting smashed and doing a littany of mostly one-night stands with a plethora of guys.
That's the starting point of this character. But as the movie plays on we follow Amy as she loses her most consistent boyfriend and makes a connection with a stable guy who just could be her "one"; a guy she could have a good and meaningful relationship. The probelm is she has YEARS of baggage and bad thinking which risks sabotaging her budding romance. So will Amy Townsend overcome her shortcomings and land the guy that we the audience are rooting for her to be with? Well, that's a typical rom-com female heroine character arc, and the central question raised in this gem of a movie.
For my money this character is spot-on, intersting and cavalier. Having prevously fallen in love with Amy Schumer from her 1/2 hour comedy show, "Inside Amy Schumer" which airs on the cable station Comedy Central, perhaps I was precondition to love Amy Schumer's character in this movie...? Well, I'd buy that to a point. But having seen this movie, I LOVE Amy's dramatic acting in this movie, "Trainwreck". For my $$ that was the biggest suprise here. I was moved by her eulogy speech at her father's funeral. And some of her facial expression during her "cute meet" with Arron (Bill Hader's character) was top notch too.
But it all goes back to concept, and how the concept relies on a "smart audience" to fill in the gaps between a promiscious father trying to justify his own infedelity to his daughter and the affect that had on his oldest daughter and to much lesser degree the affect it had on the younger daugher as played by Brie Larsen. Kinda reminded me of the bridge that "28 Days Later..." (2002: writen by Alex Garland, directed by Danny Boyle) asks the audiece to make between the first onset of the "infected" outbreak, and its eventual devestation of all of the United Kingdom. Do you get what the parallel I'm trying to make? Yes, "28 Days Later..." and "Trainwreck" are radically different movies. BUT the jump they make from there opening scene to how it sets up the rest of the movie is kind of the same; it requires the wheels in the mind of the audience to turn. True, that turn is one of uter horror in "28 Days Later...", but it one of character affect in the rom-com that "Trainwreck" is.
Now, don't get me wrong I loved this movie, "Trainwreck", but it will never crack my top-10 rom-coms of all-time list. I think currently I have it at # 30. Why so low? Gave you the impression that I LA-OVED this movie? Well, I do like this movie, "Trainwreck", but it also has some big warts. Biggest strike against this movie, the excessive sexual situtations. Like the time Amy's boyfriend is pumping away on her, then later afterwards turns to face the camera with a hand towel drapped over his cock. Straight-up gross! Straight-up execessive. Straight-up something that should have never been filmed in the first place. But then again, "Trainwreck" is clearly a raunch-com.
Okay, so "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" was a raunch-com, AND yet it made my top 25 rom-coms of all-time list. Well, from my perspective "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" is a far superior overall movie to "Trainwreck". "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" has a supporting cast that is a once-in-a-lifetime mix: Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Elizabeth Banks, Romany Malco, Seth Rogen. Now while "Trainwreck" does have a great supporting cast, the overall humor generated from that mix isn't worthy of cracking my top 10-list. Sorry. Raunch-coms are tricky beasts, especially for someone with more conservative taskes like I have.
So how did this movie score romantically? Well, I a HUGE propent of Amy's forward sexuality (totally works for me), but her pairing and love affair with Arron is really only good at the end when Amy does a dance number with the NY Knicks cheerleaders and she FINALLY makes a profession of love to him. And then the movie ends! Yeah, and so Judd Apatow proved A LOT to me; he showed me he can end a romantic comedy on the right note. The first time last weekend when I saw this movie for the first time, I actually cried out in the parking lot, lamenting the fact that it wouldn't be one of my scripts that Judd finaly proved this, but rather was Amy's script.
In any reguard, I have unending respect for Judd Apatow--especially now after he's proven beyond a shaddow of a doubt that he can end a romantic comedy on the write note. Amy's dramatic acting prowess and chops was the greatest revelation for me in this gem of movie, but Judd Apatow's top notch directing was a close 2nd. Known for long and bloated dramatic scenes from past movie he's helmed, this movie was a lot tighter. I was especially impressed by the bar scene that leads to sexual leaison with Donald the intern. I loved how it starts out with Amy dancing and trying to force herself back into her old ways, then end up getting in over her head with Donald, a character that she riddiculed and domintated for much of the movie earlier.
I just like Judd Apatow's instincts. He's won me over. And like whatever Amy Schumer does next, whatever Judd does next will have my immediate attention as well. And if you're like me and you just can't get enough Judd Apatow, he's got a new book out, "Sick in the Head" which you can buy here at this amazon link if you want. I'm going to buy a copy for sure, but then again I have eyes to work with guy someday...
Speaking of which, this movie "Trainwreck" had ONE guilty pleasure that I can't let slide. It was the movie-in-a-movie called "The Dogwalker", which was the movie playing in the theatre when Amy was on her date with the bodybuilder. In this movie Daniel Radcliff played a smoker who was walking a bunch of dogs, and being engaged by Marisa Tomea who had her own poddle that she put out there with overt sexual overtones.
Why is this a guilty pleasure? Dude, a few years ago I wrote a movie called, "Puppies. Puppies? Puppies!!!" that dealt with a geeky guy who had a crush on a girl who worked at pound, which got him saddled with with three dog that added unneeded complications to his life.
I've often wondered if people like Judd Apatow get access to and read scripts that come in to competions. Who knows MAYBE somewhere along the line Judd took a liking to what I wrote there, and was having some fun with it in this movie. If so, COOL! Dude, would LOVE for you to do it, if you want, though for YEARS I thought it would be "Give It Up for Chimpy" that brought us togther.
Fuck, I'm doing it AGAIN! Getting myself all worked up for something that'll probably never come true. Judd's a pro. Fuck, he's best friends with Adam Sandler for crying out loud. No shit, those two were buds from college. How fun would it be to party with those two guys back in the day! Babes galore...
Anywho, the "dog walker, movie inside a movie really scrambled my mind. HUGE crush on Marisa Tomea. Think she's soo gorgeous. And Daniel Radcliff. Never saw him as the slacker type before, such as Rupert Toadman is in "Puppies. Puppies? Puppies!!!" But now with his brief role in "Trainwreck" I totally get it. That is so cool how an actor or actress can take a small bit roll, and then when other people see it, their perception of them changes. Gotta be hard for Daniel Radcliff to carve out a new identiy for himself post "Harry Potter", where he played the title character, but thanks to Amy and Judd, at least in my case, my perception of his HAS changed. Daniel Radcliff won't be the next Maucoly Caulkin or Edward Froung (who was was GREAT in "Termininator II", but isn't remembered for anything else).
Well, this post was a long dousie, eh? But that what happens when you dive in and boast about a movie that you really, genuinely loved. AND I didn't even get into a lot of other stuff that was on my mind... Like how closely "Trainwreck" mirrors "How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days", and to a lesser degree, "13 Going on 30". O-kay, bear with me for one last bit, becasue this comparison/contrast is deserving of further explorations.
Ways in which "Trainwreck" is similiar to "How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days"
- Use of a heroine who is working at a magazine trying to advance in her career, and finds herself finding a potentially life-changing romance.
- New York Knicks and the basketball, subangle. In "How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days" that manifests in the NBA finals which influences both Benjamin Barry and Andie Anderson during their romance. In "Trainwreck", there's the cheerleading scene and the links back from Aarron to sports stars LaBron James and Amare Staudemire.
- Going from Statin Island back to New York. In "How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days" this is when Benjamin takes Anide back to see his parents, which really cements the genuine love that is blossoming between these two characters. In "Trainwreck" it's the opening where Amy wakes up in Statin Island and make her trek of shame back to New York via ferry.
So was it overt? Did "Trainwreck" feel like a rip-off of sorts of "How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days"? Hardly. IF Amy Schumer was influenced by that gem of a movie, that's up to her to say. Some of the similarites are obvious, at least by me who has probably watched "How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days" twenty times now. I know, I'm a hopeless romantic. Well, not really. IF you ever got to know me, you'd learnt that there's a whole a different reason althogher of why I watched that rom-com movie and several others of a selct few that much. But I digress.
If you haven't already done so, so see Amy Schumer and Judd Appatow's gem of a movie, "Trainwreck". Outside of "Inside Out", this is the 2nd best movie I've seen this year. (Sorry Amy and Judd, I just think the inner concept of "Inside Out" was just so genious I can't help but gush about how good it is. A whole story dedicated to helping a pre-teenage girl deal with an emotional move across country just gets me. Gets me at the heart level, and I would be remiss if I didn't say that "Inside Out" is the best movie of 2015 that I've seen so far.) "Trainwreck" comes in second. And 2nd isn't such a bad place to be.
- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA
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