MICHAEL MEDVED

New comedy ‘Tammy’ is depressing

Jul 3, 2014, 7:40 AM | Updated: 7:40 am

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Susan Sarandon, left, and Melissa McCarthy in a ...

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Susan Sarandon, left, and Melissa McCarthy in a scene from "Tammy." (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures, Michael Tackett)

(AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures, Michael Tackett)

The new film “Tammy” starring Melissa McCarthy has a star-studded cast, but if you’re into the storyline, you might want to consider professional help.

The film stars Melissa McCarthy along with Susan Sarandon, Dan Aykroyd, Kathy Bates and Sandra Oh.

The movie begins with Tammy, played by Melissa McCarthy, hitting a deer on her way to a job at a fast food restaurant. She is late, loses her job, and then comes home to find her husband in bed with the neighbor, and the marriage breaks up. She then hits the road with her alcoholic grandmother played by Sarandon.

If this sounds like a lot of fun to you, then I would go see a therapist. This is a very, very depressing film. I guess it has something serious to say about some of these social, emotional, economic problems in American middle class life right now, but it says it in a very heavy handed and clumsy way.

This is one of those films where I really did wish I wasn’t there. I could also spot a number of my fellow critics there at the screening who were also shifting uncomfortably.

Melissa McCarthy, of course, hit it big with “Bridesmaids” and “The Heat” with Sandra Bullock. She sort of owns this character of the overweight, blue collar, every woman, and she does project a sort of deep lovability and vulnerability onscreen. You kind of like her, and you like this Tammy character, which is why I’m giving the movie one and half stars, out of four.

It’s rated R for extremely graphic sexual content, none of it in the least bit salacious because it involves sick and very imperfect people.

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New comedy ‘Tammy’ is depressing