Film Review – Trainwreck
2 min read
Trainwreck is the feature film debut of comedian Amy Schumer (Inside Amy Schumer), who not only stars, but also took on the roles of writer and producer as well. Known for her sharp tongue, Schumer’s popularity has skyrocketed in the last few months due to her humour that mixes equal parts honesty and brutality. Directed by Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin), Trainwreck is a gender-swapped romantic comedy that attempts to highlight flaws of the rom-com while still adhering to some of its basic genre necessities
Schumer plays a fictional version of herself, raised on the ideal that monogamy isn’t natural or realistically attainable. The only commitment she appears to be able to make is to one-night stands and getting wasted, that is, until she is asked to profile a sports doctor, Aaron (Bill Hader), and finds herself in an unusual attraction. Reluctantly, she agrees to go on a date and begins to discover that there might be more worth to dating than she previously thought.
While perhaps lacking some of the bite that her television show has become so widely known for, Trainwreck still doesn’t pull its punches when outlining some of the inadequacies between men and women in the dating world. Hader (The Skeleton Twins) does well to play the quirky straight-man while still being funny, and Vanessa Bayer (SNL) has some scene stealing moments as Amy’s best friend. The true standouts of the film though are John Cena (The Marine) and LeBron James (The LeBrons), who both prove they have real comedic chops.
The downfall of the film is that Apatow is far too reliant on letting scenes play out beyond the point of humour. Instead of keeping the comedy tight and constantly moving, he allows scenes to waffle on until the joke is over and it feels like we’ve stayed well beyond our welcome. The film also suffers from having most of its laugh-out-loud moments play in the trailer, which doesn’t help.
Still, Trainwreck is Apatow’s best film in a while and proves that Schumer’s rising star is one that should remain shining for a while.
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