What if you didn’t have to feel remorse after a drunken hook-up? Why not just grab your clothes and bolt, never to call or text again?
But the stereotype, and Amy Schumer’s humor is all about subverting those, is that it’s only dudes who flee and women who want to cuddle. As the writer and star of “Trainwreck,” Schumer has mined some of her family background in devising the character of Amy Townsend, a New York journalist. She’s less of a serial seducer than a steamroller. She has a proven system for bedding guys and refusing sleepovers. (And no spooning, ever!)
Though it leads to an unexpectedly conventional rom-com outcome, “Trainwreck” is quite funny in its early rounds — as we’d expect from the hottest comic in the country right now, male or female. An ’80s childhood prologue has Amy’s cheerfully misanthropic father (Colin Quinn) explaining his divorce to his two daughters. (Would they like to play with only one doll, or several? The answer is obvious.)
Later, stuck in a nursing home with multiple sclerosis, he’ll lecture Amy again: “I know the way your pattern works. It’s my pattern.”
But hey, that pattern works fine until Amy’s assigned to profile an earnest, dorky orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Aaron (Bill Hader, from SNL). And here is where Schumer’s unapologetic, contrarian humor — call it feminist if you must — gets switched to the Hollywood mainline.
“Trainwreck” is directed by reigning comedy czar Judd Apatow (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up,” etc.), and he mandates the formulas that Schumer so brilliantly spoofs on her Comedy Central show. He also dilutes her humor with testosterone — presumably to keep guys interested in a chick flick — by introducing jocks: John Cena, LeBron James, and Amar’e Stoudemire (the latter two being Dr. Aaron’s patients and buddies). They’re actually quite charming, but this is not why we’re paying to see an Amy Schumer comedy. We have ESPN for them.
Granted, not every stand-up comic can master the screenplay form. “Trainwreck” contains many throwaway ideas suited to the small screen — nods to Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl,” Woody Allen movies, “Working Girl,” periodic snippets of an inane black-and-white chick flick (“The Dogwalker,” starring Marisa Tomei and Daniel Radcliffe) of the sort that women, ahem, are supposed to like. But not our Amy, of course.
Though it’s not the breakthrough that “Bridesmaids” was, her fans won’t be unhappy with this movie, not with so many of her signature self-undermining sotto voce punch lines. Although this fan found the ending a big disappointment. (And a forced reshoot? The DVD will tell.)
Schumer shoots par for the course, which is just enough. And she hits one hole-in-one with the Cockney harridan editor of S’nuff magazine (Tilda Swinton). With makeup, tanner, and blonde feathered hair making her look like Kate Moss left too long on the barbecue, eyes mascaraed into lumps of smoldering coal, Swinton’s Dianna needs to be given a TV show, stat!
“Trainwreck”
Though it has all the trappings of Amy Schumer’s gender-bending, subversive comedy, “Trainwreck” is good if not great. There are big laughs, but midway through the movie is hijacked by director Judd Apatow and diluted with testosterone — John Cena and LeBron James — and familiar rom-com tropes. But go, not just to see Schumer, but Tilda Swinton, who struts her stuff as a bossy magazine editor.
Rating: R, for strong sexual content, nudity, language and some drug use
Showing: Alderwood Mall, Cinebarre Mountlake Terrace, Everett Stadium, Galaxy Monroe, Marysville, Stanwood Cinemas, Meridian, Oak Tree, Sundance Cinemas Seattle, Woodinville, Cascade Mall
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