JULY 29, 2015
“Don’t judge me, fuckers!”
With that one line from the opening of Judd Apatow’s new comedy “Trainwreck,” writer/star Amy Schumer throws down the gender gauntlet to those who see Apatow comedies as a parade of man/boys trying to get laid as often as possible. Schumer turns that trope on its head here as she is the one who loves ’em & leaves ’em and never stays the night. (The one time she breaks that rule, she awakens in Staten Island, which makes her tottering walk of shame particularly lengthy.)
On her Comedy Central series “Inside Amy Schumer,” she tweaks the conventions of what sketch comedy can be — is anyone’s idea of a perfect skit a 30-minute shot-by-shot black-and-white remake of “12 Angry Men” with male jurors arguing whether Schumer is fuckable? I didn’t think so, but it is. And Schumer does the same upending here, at least in the first hour of “Trainwreck.”
Amy writes for a questionably tasteful mens magazine called “S’Nuff” under the watchful eye of her editor (a hilarious Tilda Swinton) and, as a condition of her promotion, is assigned to write a profile of sports surgeon Aaron Conners (Bill Hader), who is little known but who mingles with the likes of LeBron James (who shows surprising comic timing here). Amy does her sex thing with Aaron but is shocked when Aaron does the unthinkable — he asks her out on a second date.
This is where “Trainwreck” turns soft. Aaron is an absolute doll, and Amy questions why someone this nice would ever want to go out with her. There are obstacles thrown in her romantic way, of course, but at this point there’s no doubt that the ending is going to lead to a crowd-pleasing “A” Cinemascore.
Like most Apatow films, “Trainwreck,” at 125 minutes, is a good 20 minutes too long, and there are a few too many celebrity cameoes to be effective. Yet, with his work with Lena Dunham on “Girls” and with Schumer here, Judd Apatow of all people may become the unlikeliest facilitator for the leading female voices in comedy today.
GRADE: B
