Trainwreck
Trainwreck concerns Amy (Amy Schumer) who works at a trashy magazine and lives a promiscuous single life in New York City. Having broken up with her occasional fling Steven (John Cena), she is sent to profile the talented sports surgeon Aaron Connors (Bill Hader). She spends the night with him and they begin to fall for eachother. Will she jettison her old life and refute her father's maxim that "Monogamy isn't realistic"?
I expected more from this, I suppose. I like Schumer and Hader as screen presences but it didn't quite come together. There was a more interesting (and funnier) film in here somewhere, but it's buried under a lot of waffle. It's a little disheartening that our unconventional heroine eventually submits to the most conventional of Hollywood romcom endings, as the second half of the film collapses into a series of cliches (via Amy hitting a personal nadir that probably had conservative America bristling).
Still, Tilda Swinton looks like she's having fun as a demanding Cockney magazine editor. At one point she tells Amy, "I had sex with three quarters of Pink Floyd. Saw the dark side of all their moons". That's the sort of line that sounds like a joke, but isn't actually a joke. There are too many of them in Trainwreck and it's dogged by the sort of self-indulgence and lack of writing discipline that have become a feature of Judd Apatow's recent work.
The best performances in this film are from unexpected sources. LeBron James steals the show whenever he's on screen, playing a heightened version of himself who insists on splitting the bill despite being one of the wealthiest sportsmen on Earth. His scenes with Hader were my favourites, along with a deathly serious interrogation with Amy about "her intentions" towards his friend. If nothing else, I came away thinking that the mooted Space Jam 2 might be worth a watch with James in it.
Cena puts in a decent cameo, demonstrating Amy's assertion that sleeping with Steven "is like fucking an ice sculpture" in one particularly awkward scene. He's not exactly alone in this in terms of professional wrestlers, but Cena's upper body is absolutely freakish. Cena also shows some decent comedy timing in an increasingly homoerotic scene in a cinema. Mike Birbiglia is cast well as Schumer's goofy brother in law.
Given the talent involved, Trainwreck had great potential. But I left rather disappointed.
I expected more from this, I suppose. I like Schumer and Hader as screen presences but it didn't quite come together. There was a more interesting (and funnier) film in here somewhere, but it's buried under a lot of waffle. It's a little disheartening that our unconventional heroine eventually submits to the most conventional of Hollywood romcom endings, as the second half of the film collapses into a series of cliches (via Amy hitting a personal nadir that probably had conservative America bristling).
Still, Tilda Swinton looks like she's having fun as a demanding Cockney magazine editor. At one point she tells Amy, "I had sex with three quarters of Pink Floyd. Saw the dark side of all their moons". That's the sort of line that sounds like a joke, but isn't actually a joke. There are too many of them in Trainwreck and it's dogged by the sort of self-indulgence and lack of writing discipline that have become a feature of Judd Apatow's recent work.
The best performances in this film are from unexpected sources. LeBron James steals the show whenever he's on screen, playing a heightened version of himself who insists on splitting the bill despite being one of the wealthiest sportsmen on Earth. His scenes with Hader were my favourites, along with a deathly serious interrogation with Amy about "her intentions" towards his friend. If nothing else, I came away thinking that the mooted Space Jam 2 might be worth a watch with James in it.
Cena puts in a decent cameo, demonstrating Amy's assertion that sleeping with Steven "is like fucking an ice sculpture" in one particularly awkward scene. He's not exactly alone in this in terms of professional wrestlers, but Cena's upper body is absolutely freakish. Cena also shows some decent comedy timing in an increasingly homoerotic scene in a cinema. Mike Birbiglia is cast well as Schumer's goofy brother in law.
Given the talent involved, Trainwreck had great potential. But I left rather disappointed.
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