Trainwreck, the latest outing from director Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, This Is 40) is everything you’d expect from him — it’s hilarious and it’s crude, but underneath it all, it’s real and it has heart.
Lead star and writer Amy Schumer plays Amy Townsend who, when not working at a her job as a magazine writer on such charming topics as “whether garlic makes semen taste any different”, engages herself in one-night stands with men and disposes of them before they can offer her breakfast.
After she’s assigned to write a piece on sports physician Aaron Conners, played by the always likeable Bill Hader, Amy finds herself falling for him and her insecurities and fear of commitment soon unravel.
Schumer is known for her often vulgar sense of humour, as displayed on her TV show, Inside Amy Schumer, and there’s no shortage of it here either. But as Apatow always can do with his cast, we see a new side to Schumer that isn’t all sex jokes and innuendo; a vulnerable, flawed woman who has been raised to fear intimacy.
Her chemistry with Hader is the real winner here and while her character can often display incredibly unlikeable features (like avoiding a break-up talk with her boyfriend because she is too high), Hader’s sweet, funny personality brings out the best in her and in his own character.
Honourable mentions must be made to living basketball legend LeBron James who plays himself as Hader’s oversensitive friend and WWE superstar John Cena as one of Schumer’s love interests/a sexually confused man. The two athletes flex more than their muscle here as they respectively steal nearly all of the scenes in which they feature with laugh out loud moments.
