Due to some pretty poor parenting advice from her father as a child, Amy has become a commitment-phobic woman who has a great career, like everyone does in Apatow films, and essentially only believes in one-night stands. But when she meets a surgeon to sports stars, played by Saturday Night Live’s Bill Hader, she becomes conflicted about her long held beliefs about what “monogamy” really means.
Look, let’s not beat about the bush, this is a Romantic Comedy, but a Romantic Comedy written by Amy Schumer and directed by the guy who gave us the 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, so it’s fair to say that it subverts many of the common cliches and tropes of the genre. Schumer essentially has the traits of the male role reserved for Rom-Coms whereas Hader takes on the more feminine elements found in these types of movies, thus the film is refreshing. But even more so it’s the raunchy comedy that pulls this out of the more cringe-worthy parts of the genre that drives most men into glazed over sacks that are just waiting for the end credits.
The supporting cast around Schumer is magnificent. LeBron James is a real highlight of the film. Surprisingly, for a current sporting personality he provides a version of himself that is self-deprecating, needy and extremely funny. What's most amazing is that he doesn't make cheesy or eye-rolling references to his career, I could never see Dennis Rodman doing this in his acting career (or when people gave a sh*t about Dennis Rodman - if people ever did.) You also get a great comedic turn from Mark Wahlberg, sorry I mean John Cena, who looks like Mark Wahlberg ate Mark Wahlberg, he and Amy’s sex scene is hilariously awkward. Bill Hader is a great leading man, very much in the same vain as Paul Rudd, he has the charm and the humour which makes for the perfect pairing for Amy Schumer. The other great casting is Tilda Swinton who is, much like in the movie Snowpiercer, completely unrecognisable as a downright despicable editor of a magazine called Snuff - she's so shallow and dismissive based on such purely superficial reasons that you don't know whether to punch her in the face or take a shower.
It would have been incredibly easy for this film to just become a series of stand-up jokes delivered directly to the audience, however Apatow manages to blend much of Amy Schumer’s stand-up material effortlessly into the story. In the hands of a lesser director, we would be getting lots of short unrelated comedy clips like we did in Ted 2 or A Million Ways To Die In The West, so this is not only great for Amy Schumer’s debut but for us as an audience.
The comedy can be on the nose at times, it can get a little dirty, well really dirty, like you might need a shower afterwards kind of dirty, but a lot of it comes off very relatable. It may get a little awkward at times when you’re wife, girlfriend and partner starts laughing harder than you and starts saying between snorts “so true, so true…” Yeah, depending on the scene that could be an awkward conversation afterwards. Like many Apatow films there is always a strong desire to bring the serious moments into the really serious territory where it often hits a little too close to home and uncomfortable. Much like in the other Apatow films it doesn't really fit with the flow of the rest of the laugh out loud comedy. This is most likely due to Apatow's personal push for comedies to receive the coveted Oscar-nod via their own category of "Best Comedy" which is fine, but it shouldn't be at the expense of a comedy being a comedy.
The film is clearly aiming to be an "Anti-Rom-Com" and it does succeed with this on many levels thanks to the raw realism of the modern dating scene and how we view sexual relationships, but the film does fall into stock-standard “Rom-Com” at times, particularly at the end. Thankfully, the film is far too enjoyable to hold that against it.
Trainwreck gets Four and a Half out of Five Stars (or Four and a Half really awkward conversations with your partner about your sexual history)
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