The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Grade: B

I imagine many moviegoers are getting sick of award nominations going to performances that are more about heavy makeup, elaborate costumes, or gaining/losing a lot of weight than about craft. Let me see what you can do in a straight-up performance without those crutches that often make it look more like a drag show or an entertaining cosplay. In all fairness, though, if you’re playing Tammy Faye Bakker, you’re bound to be buried under pounds of makeup for most of it. It goes without saying that Best Actress nominee Jessica Chastain is unrecognizable in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and she also attacks the role with fervor, and is highly convincing. She and Andrew Garfield as Jim Bakker have among the best chemistry I’ve seen this past year, although their characterizations are quite over-the-top and more suited for live theatre than a movie. To balance these out are a couple of effective supporting performances that are more down-to-earth, such as Vincent D’Onofrio as Jerry Falwell, who gives us a believable impression without it resorting to a shallow SNL-skit type of acting – and especially Cherry Jones as Tammy’s long-suffering mother.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye takes us from Tammy’s childhood in the early 1950s, when she crashes a church service and speaks in tongues when she gets saved – to meeting Jim in college, where they go as far as possible in the bedroom without upsetting God – to the 70s and 80s when they become the darlings of TV audiences…excuse me, parishioners nationwide – and beyond. They make many calls for “pledges” from “partners” to support their extravagant lifestyle, provide hush money for victims of their affairs, and occasionally for the actual purpose for which they were putting on their front. Y’know, the God stuff. The reason they started all this in the first place, lest they forget.

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the film, but then a funny thing happened to me halfway through. Something clicked, and I was won over. I fell for it, and I fell for them, just like I was a member of their audience…excuse me, a parishioner. This is a movie that knows how to move things along, construct an exciting montage, and stick the landing in the end. You have to admire the sheer commitment from Chastain and Garfield, even if they are often grotesque caricatures. I almost always see a friend of mine in the movies, in a small role. My friend Wes Jetton shows up here, as a fangirling male nurse, and he makes the most of his brief scene.

In a weird way, The Eyes of Tammy Faye worked for me. I didn’t object to the inevitable “here’s what happened to the characters and here’s where they are now” captions at the end. It immediately made me want to research the real-life people, places, and events. I guess those are two good signs that you have a biopic that did its job.

Grade: B