The Eyes Of Tammy Faye: A Kooky, Yet Conventional Biopic That's Held Up By Its Lead Performance
Michael Showalter’s latest, The Eyes Of Tammy Faye, is a lightly kooky, holy rollercoaster of a biopic that’s bolstered by the commitment of its leads. Based of the 2000 documentary of the same name, the film dramatizes the well-documented life of beloved televangelists Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker, chronicling their extraordinary rise and their scandalous fall. While it proves to be fairly entertaining (mostly due to its performances), Showalter and screenwriter Abe Sylvia don’t go as far or deep as we’d hoped, culminating in a fairly conventional biopic whose story is better examined in documentary format.
In the 1970s and 80s, Tammy Faye and her husband, Jim Bakker, rose from humble beginnings to create the world's largest religious broadcasting network and theme park, and were revered for their message of love, acceptance and prosperity. Tammy Faye was legendary for her indelible eyelashes, her idiosyncratic singing, and her eagerness to embrace people from all walks of life. However, it wasn't long before financial improprieties, scheming rivals, and scandal toppled their carefully constructed empire.
Don’t let the title fool you, eyes don’t play much of a factor in The Eyes Of Tammy Faye. We rarely get to glimpse through the titular Tammy Faye’s garishly decorated peepers, and other than learning that she had a majority of her make-up permanently applied to her face, they seldom feel that relevant. The truth is, after you strip away all the face paint, the film is really more about Tammy’s heart and the love she wanted to share with the world than anything else. As an early televangelist, Tammy Faye Bakker pushed the boundaries of conservative Christianity with her media empire (which she controlled alongside her husband, Jim), challenging many Christians along the way. As the film (as well as the documentary for which it’s based on) shows, Tammy Faye was bringing on HIV-positive preachers as co-hosts during a time when the mainstream media shunned it entirely.
Tammy Faye may have blazed trailers and broadened horizons, but director Michael Showalter and writer Abe Sylvia play things safe and conventional. They leave it to the leads, Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield, to do the heavy lifting (though it’s Chastain who carries a bulk of the load). Their performances are fun and fittingly kooky, but Showalter’s style is mostly plain and uninteresting. Perhaps in the hands of David Wain (a longtime friend and frequent collaborator with Showalter), we would get something less conventional and more stylistically fun and intriguing. There are moments when Showalter leans more into the period and recreates old footage, which make the film more tactile and visually engaging, but he never goes quite as big as you’d wish.
Sylvia’s script ignores that classic Vonnegut commandment: start as close to the end as possible. We have to wade through a lot of setup and backstory before any interesting conflict emerges. We catch out first glimpse of this when we’re introduced to Jerry Falwell (who’s played by a nearly unrecognizable Vincent D'Onofrio), as he and Tammy civilly bump heads over their differing views on homosexuality. This moment is also the first time we really see Tammy’s personality shine through, and the film is at its best when Tammy speaks her mind. The main conflict manifests late in the film through several revelations in Jim and Tammy’s marriage, which we were teased with early on in the film’s credit sequence.
The film’s title sequence is another curious thing. As much as it sets up the rocky, holy rollercoaster to come, it obscures the impact of its story beats and spoils any surprises for the uninitiated. Of course, Jim & Tammy Faye’s life is well-known and -documented; there’s the documentary The Eyes of Tammy Faye (which this film is based on) and an ABC 20/20 episode that covers the duo in even more detail. Sylvia doesn’t really present us with anything new here, and he declines to delve into Tammy’s final chapter, her battle with colon cancer and her haunting last appearance on Larry King Live which occurred a literal day before her death. That last little sliver feels lime a vital piece to the puzzle that is Tammy Faye.
At the end of the day, this wholesomely hokey, tastefully gaudy, and acceptably irreverent biopic mostly works thanks to the immersive performances that are at its center. It’s occasionally grating and a bit tonally uneven, but The Eyes Of Tammy Faye ultimately makes for a pretty entertaining watch, even though it doesn’t push things as far as you may hope. In truth, the fact that the film doesn’t tackle the end of Tammy’s life is a bit disappointing, but Jessica Chastain, Andrew Garfield, and Vincent D’Onofrio’s performance help to make up for that.
Recommendation: If you’re a fan of Jessica Chastain, definitely give the film a watch. She really disappears into her role and is likely to pull down an Oscar nod for her work here.
Rating: 3 giggles outta 5.
What do you think? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!