Falcone: Tammy (2014)

At her best, Melissa McCarthy has an uncanny way of being low-key and high-energy at the same time, a combination that makes her the ideal actor to propel a road trip film. In fact, ever since her breakout in Bridesmaids – where her bridesmaid opted for the biggest, most cross-country bridal trip – all her films have pretty much been concealed road trip films, or not-so-concealed road trip films, as in the case of Identity Thief. However, where Identity Thief tried to bring McCarthy a little too close to John Candy, right down to the drumming on the dashboard, Tammy feels more organically tied to her brand of spun-out intensity, perhaps because it’s also written and directed by her husband, Ben Falcone. In essence, it’s a Dukes of Hazzard-style series of road vignettes that unfold when Tammy, played by McCarthy, gets ejected from her workplace and her marriage all in one morning, and sets out from her home town of Murphysboro on Illinois Route 13 without much of a plan, except to make the most of her alcoholic but affluent grandmother (Susan Sarandon), who’s hitched herself along for the ride. Road films often proceed best by dispersing any real sense of a destination, and that’s very much the case here, not least because, as her mother (Allison Janney) points out, Tammy has a history of bolting for the town limits whenever something goes wrong, only to sheepishly return home a couple of hours later. In order to really prove to herself that she’s making a change this time, then, she has to keep driving when she reaches the highway – the destination doesn’t matter – and that takes us through a veritable tour of heartland America, less a series of scenes than spaces – diners, campsites, fast food outlets, restaurants, general stores – that rearrange themselves around Tammy’s comic restlessness, the impatience that McCarthy does so well. In fact, she’s so restless for change that the road simply seems to slow things down, decelerating her with all the trinkets she has to sweep off shelves and push off counters just to get along to the next stopoff or offramp, until it starts to feel as if she and her grandmother are getting closer and closer to the actual earth, deeper and deeper into a groove. With that kind of a vibe, it’s only a matter of time before they’re on the lam as well, going to ground amongst the small-scale, intimate Americana that so often comes to light in Fourth of July films, culminating with a lesbian Independence Day party hosted by Tammy’s long-lost aunt Lenore (Kathy Bates) and her wife Susanne (Sandra Oh). While that's not necessarily McCarthy’s funniest destination – that’s probably still the warehouse at the end of The Heat – it gives itself over to her peculiar brand of energy more than any other, opening up a wacky, widescreen America in her wake, a nation of spare parts and minor roles.