‘Trainwreck’ derails standards in comedy

Tyler Mead, Print Arcade Editor

Everyone has their low days, or sometimes even weeks, but it’s not until you make out behind a dumpster with one guy and wake up on Staten Island with some other Jersey Shore-esque guido on a workday in the same week that you’ve really become a trainwreck. In the latest Judd Apatow film, “Trainwreck,” Amy Schumer hits that sweet spot.

Schumer, of “Inside Amy Schumer,” brought her uniquely blue humor to the big screen for the first time, and could not have done a better job representing her wit, talent and love of white wine. Schumer plays Amy, a pot-smoking, heavy-drinking, sexually liberated woman and journalist for the high-end magazine “S’nuff” with hard-hitting pieces like “Ugliest Celebrity Children Under 6.” Her boss (Tilda Swinton) assigns her to cover a piece on a prominent sports doctor named Aaron (Bill Hader) due to Amy’s unadulterated hatred for all things involving sports.

She meets Aaron, they sleep together and then Amy breaks her cardinal rule of never sleeping over with a guy, and so their whirlwind romance begins. Part of what makes “Trainwreck” so fun to watch are the obvious reversals of gender roles. Hader’s character is clingy, very emotional and has serious talks about his relationship with his bestie, LeBron James. Schumer, on the other hand, plays a character fit for Seth Rogen with slightly bigger boobs. The dynamic teases the genre of romantic comedies from within, and allows Schumer to really ramp up her crass humor.

“Trainwreck” suffers from the same problems the “Entourage” movie had: not rampant sexism and massive plot holes, but too many stars. The cameos came fast and often, leaving little time to actually appreciate them. Daniel Radcliffe, Amar’e Stoudemire and Matthew Broderick all appear as themselves, but with very few actual jokes to go with their screen time. Appearances from Schumer’s friends and fellow comedians like Leslie Jones (“Saturday Night Live”) and Bridget Everett (“Inside Amy Schumer”) steal the limelight when it comes to short quips.

“Trainwreck” marks the start of something big for Schumer. Her last few years have been filled with rapidly building success, and “Trainwreck” is so much fun that she’ll be undeniably added to the ranks of Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and the other titans of comedy.

Leave a Comment