Both a rebuke to the romantic comedy and an embrace of it, the film manages to take chances that people have been begging the stale genre to take for a long time.
What Works: “Trainwreck” may look like it’s just coasting on the recent trend of “women who are a fucking mess but great guys love them anyway” comedy (Bridesmaids, Girls, Tammy, Catastrophe, Broad City, etc.) but there’s actually never been a movie about a female commitment-phobe. Even “Bridesmaids” was essentially about a wedding, and really a lot more formulaic than people thought.
Anyway, the jokes work more often than not, and skillfully mixes Schumer’s brand of laugh-out-loud sex jokes and sharp societal observations. The supporting cast is balanced out by an electic mix of John Cena (hilarious, who knew?), Colin Quinn (underrated), LeBron James (who knew again?), and a wonderfully hideous Tilda Swinton.
What Doesn’t: Judd Apatow’s trademark lack of editing eventually weighs the movie down. For example: we might laugh at the first few scenes of Bill Hader hanging out with LeBron, but after a couple there’s really no point. Plus, the last third really doesn’t work very well: the pacing drags, scenes run too long, and it ultimately cheaps out on its central premise. The film can’t seem to decide if the main character really needs to change or doesn’t (it says she does, but that’s more because of a run of bad luck than because it seems to really believe this). And–to be honest–even though the romance between her and Hader seems realistic, I’m not sure I entirely buy that they’re right for each other or that they would even necessarily be interested in each other long term.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Tighten that pace, cut out some filler, shorten the subplots, and take out a few extraneous characters and you’d have the best romantic comedy in ages.
Loved the movie thought it was original mainly because I’d never seen her show on Comedy Central. I totally missed the fact that her boss was Tilda Swinton and I love her and even recognized her in Hotel Budapest. Loved the movie.
Great review as always.