Three stars. Rated R, for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.18.16
Redemption stories are as old as
novels themselves, as today’s readers of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and
countless other authors can testify. There’s something tremendously satisfying
about following the adventures of flawed characters who eventually, finally
experience an epiphany, subsequently becoming better versions of themselves.
While this narrative form has
been equally popular on the big screen, recent examples have substituted the
traditional shortcomings — avarice, deceit, betrayal — with revolting levels of
vulgarity and malice. The protagonists in Tammy (Melissa McCarthy), Bad Words (Jason Bateman) and Trainwreck (Amy Schumer), among others, are social
pariahs to a degree that is breathtakingly inexcusable ... not to mention their
sporting potty-mouths that undoubtedly bring joy to giggling adolescents.
Which is, perhaps, an intriguing
social statement ... since such uncouth, infantile sensibilities now seem
perfectly acceptable to thirty- and fortysomethings.
(And current Republican
presidential candidates. But that’s another story.)
More critically, the balance has
been skewed. When we spend 92 percent of a film being horrified by our main
character’s relentlessly nasty behavior, is salvation even possible? And even
if a script arbitrarily insists on yes ... is it deserved?
The Bronze straddles a very
narrow vaulting horse. Some will argue, with complete justification, that the
film slips and lands with a thud on the wrong side of the mat. I’m inclined toward
feeble generosity, thanks to a couple of clever last-minute plot twists ... but
the viewing experience remains wincingly painful at times. Lots of times.
This Sundance Festival indie is a
pet project by actress Melissa Rauch, well recognized in her long-running role
as Bernadette Rostenkowski, on TV’s The Big Bang Theory. She and husband
Winston co-wrote the script; they also co-produced the film itself, in which
she stars. The result is — to say the least — light-years removed from her work
in Big Bang, and not for the faint of heart (or easily offended).
She plays Hope Ann Gregory, who
as a hard-working teenage gymnast became America’s sweetheart after bravely
performing at the 2004 Olympics, despite having ruptured an Achilles tendon.
The result: an unexpected and well-earned bronze medal. She returned home to a
hero’s welcome in the working-class town of Amherst, Ohio, determined to train
hard, re-ignite her career, and take a gold next time out.
But it wasn’t to be.
We catch up with Hope a decade
later, embittered and hostile, a pint-size rage machine who spitefully takes
out her frustration on every two-legged creature in her path. She still lives
in her father Stan’s (Gary Cole) basement, rising each morning to bind her
breasts — professional gymnasts aren’t allowed to have a bust line — and don
the same Team USA gym suit, complemented by teeny-bopper bangs, ponytail and
scrunchie.
She whines and curses her father
over breakfast every morning, then steals money from random letters in his mail
truck, and drives to the local mall. Once there, she milks her minor celebrity
for free food, swag and low-level drugs from the fans and marginal hangers-on
who still regard her as a Star. For which she is ungrateful.
She’s cruel and deliberately
nasty, saying the meanest things possible at any given moment, inevitably
punctuated by F-bombs and smutty sexual references. She’s also stupid —
schooling apparently having taken fifth place, back in the day, to training,
training, training and training — and contemptuous of anybody who dares correct
her frequently ill-informed comments about anything from math to current
affairs.
She is, in short, a thoroughly
contemptible human being: a useless parasite who doesn’t deserve the air she
breathes.
Whether any of her abusive
behavior is “funny” rests in the eye of the beholder. Director Bryan Buckley,
in an uneven big-screen debut, clearly plays everything for cringing laughter.
Details emerge slowly, much of our
heroine’s hostility apparently stemming from a perceived betrayal by “Coach P”
Pavleck (Christine E. Abraham), the Russian mentor who guided Hope to the 2004
Olympics. She also has little use for the local guy — Thomas Middleditch, as
Ben — who manages the local gym where Coach P still trains hopefuls.
Ben has carried a torch for Hope
all this time. Seizing on the poor guy’s facial tic, she insists on calling him
Twitch.
It’s difficult to imagine how much
longer Hope’s downward spiral might have continued, were it not for Coach P’s
unexpected suicide, and the letter that reaches Hope posthumously. She has been
named the sole beneficiary of Coach P’s impressive estate ... but only if Hope
trains the coach’s final protégé, a gymnastics prodigy —bubbly Maggie (Haley Lu
Richardson) — all the way to the upcoming 2016 Olympics.
Hope can’t think of anything
worse, not least because of her disdain for the eternally cheerful Maggie’s
good-little-Christian-girl innocence. But Hope also is greedy.
So, the question: Will Hope’s reluctant
acceptance of this challenge help her rise to the occasion, along the way
making her more deserving of the kindness and patience shown by her father and
Ben?
Or, enraged by the notion of
helping a rising star fulfill the dreams Hope never achieved herself, will she
deliberately sabotage the impressionable Maggie, to ensure that Amherst never
has more than one hometown hero?
As the weeks progress — given the
relentless vitriol of this script — the latter seems increasingly likely.
On a purely analytical level, the
dynamic here is intriguing. Billy Bob Thornton’s unrepentant turn in 2003’s Bad Santa comes to mind, but the distinction is that we neither expected nor
wanted his disgusting character to change; he was funny precisely because of
his reflexive misanthropy. Hope, in contrast, is simply a spoiled brat who
never matured, and whose bad choices offer little to admire.
And yet, potty mouth
notwithstanding, there’s an undeniably brave gusto to Rauch’s performance. She
never cracks a smile, and that’s impressive enough, given her outrageously ghastly
dialog. And her infrequent, grudging efforts at kindness are rather amusing,
because they’re so clumsily inappropriate.
Rauch also lights up wickedly
when Hope begins poor Maggie’s “training,” eagerly embracing this chance to
thoroughly debase an unworldly innocent. Richardson, for her part, is
wonderfully clueless: endearingly, unwisely trusting, and utterly ignorant of
Hope’s sexually combustible comments and suggestions. Their dynamic is
appallingly awkward ... and, yes, that makes it pretty funny.
Ultimately, all of this is made
more palatable because of the faith in Hope shown by Stan and Ben. Cole is
spot-on as a loving, devoted father at his wit’s end, over what to do about the
only child — once an adoring daughter — who has become such a monster. Although
Rauch plays Hope as a grotesque, Cole’s Stan is firmly grounded: our rock of uncomplaining
(if helplessly resigned) moral integrity.
The amiable Middleditch, a
regular on TV’s Silicon Valley, is similarly sympathetic. Although poor Ben’s
twitch is an uncomfortable distraction — we know that we shouldn’t laugh at it,
and yet (with Hope’s encouragement) we do — he is nonetheless endearing in a self-conscious,
aw-shucks way. And Hope absolutely doesn’t deserve him, which of course is the
point.
Sebastian Stan pops up as former
men’s gymnastic star Lance Tucker — briefly Hope’s boyfriend, back in the day —
and now a rival coach looking to snatch Maggie for his own team. Stan is
appropriately smarmy, and his presence provides unexpected balance: Lance is,
truth be told, far more unpleasant in the ways that really matter.
Although Rauch’s film mostly
limits its outrageousness to verbal excesses, Buckley and editor Jay Nelson
superbly choreograph one physical encounter that demonstrates, in fully limber
and naked glory, what it might be like when two world-class gymnasts have rowdy
sex. It’s a scene destined for permanent Internet afterlife, as hilariously exaggerated
as the swimming pool encounter between Kyle MacLachlan and Elizabeth Berkley,
in 1995’s Showgirls (demonstrating that Russ Meyer’s sensibilities were
decades ahead of their time).
I’m not sure the sequence
actually belongs in this film — things sorta dead-stop in its wake — but it’s
certainly audacious.
So, consider this a reluctant
endorsement. The Bronze is well named, as it probably deserves a bronze.
Rauch, as co-scripter, undertakes the almost impossible challenge of daring us
to like Hope Ann Gregory ... and she almost pulls it off.
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