Trainwreck

For the first time in almost a decade, director Judd Apatow comes to the screen with a tale he didn't pen himself. This time up and coming comedian Amy Schumer provides the fodder for a romantic comedy that is honest, raw, and extremely funny.

After a very frank sermon by her father as to the frailty of monogamous relations when she was nine, Amy (Amy Schumer) has never been one for commitment. However when her magazine assigns her to interview a sports doctor, Aaron Conners (Bill Hader) she finds herself unexpectedly falling for him. As her professional and family life falls apart,  Amy instead finds herself contemplating being in a long term relationship. The question becomes how long she can keep things together without sabotaging herself.

This is a genuinely surprising film.

Not that it is funny, because for years now Schumer's show has established that she is a vast comedic talent who can tell risqué, cutting edge jokes. Nor that it has an underlying intelligence, because again if anyone has proven that she can turn a bunch of dick jokes into a contemplation on the expectations of third wave feminism, it is Schumer. It is that Trainwreck is more poignant and self reflective than we had a right to expect. There is a sadness about Amy's character, a unfulfilled longing that moves rapidly into the foreground of the narrative. This realisation that her behaviour and attitude no longer reflect what she wants in life, and her struggles to deal with intimacy and commitment add that strong dramatic element that this film needs to ground it. She is a realised character, struggling with the ghost of her childhood past and her father's bitter rejection of monogamy.

Her script has a rawness and intensely personal nature that feels refreshing in, for what is to all intensive purposes, a rom-com. Still there is much more here. The gender roles have been slightly tweaked, with Amy demonstrating behaviour more traditionally associated with a male character. Yet it still manages to hit all the expected tropes of the genre, while subtly twist them or parody them, even down to the final show stopping romantic gesture. At times it may be confronting to watch her make some poor decisions, but it is real, understandable and, most of all, genuine. 

Schumer and Hader have a chemistry together that works well in this film. They might not smoulder but they more importantly convey a mutual respect and attempt at understanding. In a solid cast the biggest surprise, however, is that both LeBron James and John Cena work well. What could easily have been stunt casting produces a number of hilariously funny sequences; James in particular has a great deadpan delivery and sense of comic timing that steals every scene.

A refreshing take on romantic comedy that is brimming with honesty and humour. 

Originally published in X-Press Magazine