I’ll admit it–at first I didn’t understand all the hype around Melissa McCarthy.
Of course, I grew up watching her play Sookie in Gilmore Girls, but the “new” movie-version of McCarthy seemed to be a different person than the one on my living room TV when I was younger. The first movie of hers that I saw was Bridesmaids, and while I thought she was funny, I didn’t consider her to be anything special in comparison to any other comedic side-kick role.
But that was because I was taking her at face value; I was only seeing her as how marketing agencies portrayed her on posters like this:
I didn’t see dynamic of an actor she truly was until I saw her dramatic work in the movie St. Vincent.
Her character was a single mom struggling to make ends, having to take on a new job and move to a new neighborhood with her young son. While this was not the first time she had played a “broken” character, she approached it in a different way. This wasn’t a role where she wore Crocs and crashed cars; she was raw and aware of how her emotions affected others.
Just by looking at her training, the depth that she provides her characters with shouldn’t be surprising. In New York, she trained at The Actor’s Studio, and in LA, she performed with a famous improv group called “The Groundlings.” However, there’s no doubt that comedy is her strong suit and selling point. After all, she was nominated for an Academy Award for playing Meghan in Bridesmaids.
So when I went to see her movie Spy last weekend, I wasn’t expecting anything too much different than Bridesmaids (Paul Feig directed both movies). Not to say that Bridesmaids was bad–I quote it as much as the next girl–but Spy was beyond what I thought it would be.
First of all, her dynamic, multi-dimensional character. Second, the feminist undertones. Third, Jude Law has a full head of glorious blonde hair. This is the trifecta of a perfect pseudo-James Bond movie.
McCarthy plays an unappreciated CIA agent named Susan Cooper whose only real job is to guide the spy Bradley Fine through his missions.
When the identities of all the other top spies are compromised, Susan is the only one that can complete the mission unnoticed, since everyone in the office seems to view her as an invisible “lunch lady.” And so she goes undercover first as a divorced housewife, and then as a middle-aged cat-lover who is vacationing in Paris with the money she made off of selling Mary Kay.
She realizes that with these personas, she’s not able to reach her full potential, and so she gives herself a make-over and buys a new wardrobe of couture outfits. But it’s not the typical “frumpy woman tries to look sexy and it’s hilarious because she can’t walk in heels” scenario that we so often see in movies.
She looked amazing and exuded confidence; she stopped viewing herself as others did, and so she was able to understand her own value and reach her full potential as an agent. It wasn’t her new persona that changed her, but rather it was her freeing herself of what she felt like she had to suppress when no one took her seriously in the office.
The main reason that I think Spy is McCarthy’s best movie yet is because she has redefined a very popular approach to comedy movies in the past few years. In movies like Tammy or Identity Thief, we didn’t necessarily want to see the characters develop too much out of their quirkiness. They mostly had unethical motives and lived bizarre lifestyles, but that’s what made them funny in situations where the stakes were high.
Richard Brody, a film critic for The New Yorker, said that, “Comedy, when it’s funny, risks rejection and revulsion; it is, in large measure, the quest for progress through regressive feelings.” But in Spy, Melissa McCarthy is able to play a character that not only is hilarious, but one that we can also sympathize with. In this sense, she rises above her peers, male and female, in the same way that her character does.
However, the movie doesn’t sacrifice its share of off-color jokes and contrived situations. And so Spy is a lot like her; it doesn’t take itself too seriously, while at the same time is clever, exciting, and hilarious.
This is a movie you shouldn’t miss, Collegiettes!
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