Trainwreck

When I think I can trust a romantic comedy to give me some substance in plot, into the film it soon let's me down in spades. It's not that rom-coms don't have potential to obtain strong, sustaining scripts with incredibly funny storylines, but seemingly they are executed with shallow, predictable plots that one could practically mouth the words to. So why did I give "Trainwreck" a chance? Perhaps because I thought with the likes of Tilda Swinton in it and even Bill Hader being there, it might, just might be a bit different.

Since she was a little girl, it's been drilled into Amy's head by her irresponsible dad, Gordon (Colin Quinn) that monogamy isn't realistic. Now a magazine writer, Amy (Amy Schumer) lives by that credo-- enjoying what she feels is an uninhibited life free from stifling, boring romantic commitment-- but in actuality, she's in a deep rut. When she finds herself starting to fall for the subject of the new article she's writing, a charming and successful sports doctor named Aaron Conners (Bill Hader), Amy starts to wonder if other grown-ups, including this guy who really seems to like her, might be on to something. Even her younger sister, Kim (Brie Larson) tries to push her into the direction of a committed relationship, because Amy's plight is that obvious. But when she works for a fluffy, shallow magazine and the people she works with such as Nikki (Vanessa Bayer) and her boss, Dianna (Tilda Swinton) are so shallow and non-committing themselves, her rut becomes that much more noticeable.

Others to round out the cast are John Cena as Steven, one of Amy's boyfriends, Randall Park as Bryson, Ezra Miller as Donald, the magazine's intern, Jon Glaser as Schultz, Dave Attell as Noam, Mike Birbiglia as Tom, Kim's husband, Evan Brinkman as Allister, Tom's son, LeBron James as Himself, Dan Soder as Dumpster Guy and Norman Lloyd as Norman.

This was adequately directed by Judd Apatow ("North Hollywood" (TV movie) '01, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" '05, "Knocked Up" '07, "Funny People" '09, "This is 40" '12). There really isn't anything memorable about how these actors related to one another, but executed properly by Apatow. Besides this being a rom-com, I get the attempt by writer, Amy Schumer (several TV series work) to give us somewhat of a unique story here: a very screwed up single woman hired to interview a sports doctor when she knows nothing about sports and this doctor turns out to be a nice, regular guy, but this is where the uniqueness starts and ends. For one thing, this film did not have to have a 125 minute running time to get how messed up this young woman is--this was hammered for too long and took up way too much time and effort, which made this story drag far too much. Secondly,the last half hour of this is the best part, but is this where the end justifies the means? In other words, does the great ending justify the anguish of what one would have to go through to get to that end. I think not. Swinton as Amy's shallow, callous boss and Hader's nice, real type guy character were probably the highlights here. Schumer has raw talent as a screenwriter, but I can't help but think that maybe she should stick to TV a bit longer to hone the skill that's probably buried somewhere in her.

This was an admiral attempt at a promising rom-com storyline, but at the end of the day, it just needed more polish and less silliness to make us all laugh more. Because when we can laugh more, it makes our day to day lives that much more bearable. What can I say, but the title of the film says it all.  

Out of 4 Stars: 1.5                               Rated: R                               125mins.