Review: The Eyes Of Tammy Faye

Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight.

Michael Showalter's "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" adapts the 2000 documentary of the same name into a feature film that pretty much follows the same story, although it features a feat of acting by Jessica Chastain, who undergoes the most shocking transformation I can think of since Charlize Theron's turn in "Monster."

It's a pretty decent film, even if it all feels pretty familiar. The story tells the rise and fall of Jim (Andrew Garfield, who very effectively lays on the smarm here) Bakker and his wife, the heavily-made up Tammy Faye (Chastain). As a young girl, Tammy Faye felt the calling of the Lord, but wasn't allowed in her mother's (Cherry Jones) church, where the older woman was the organist, because her mother had gone through a divorce. They basically needed an organist, so Tammy Faye took the brunt of the punishment, and it's an early example of her coming up against the sexist views of the church.

In school, Tammy Faye is drawn to Jim, who can certainly quote scripture, but often does so to explain why God wants him - and Tammy Faye and, hell, everyone - to prosper, and not to suffer needlessly on this planet. In other words, he makes all sorts of justifications for the ridiculous amount of wealth he'll acquire through the empire that he and Tammy Faye - who's really the saleswoman in the couple - build together.

But first, they must go through Pat Robertson, played by Gabriel Olds as an old stick-in-the-mud compared to Jim and Tammy Faye's affected exuberance, who has the market cornered on televangelism in Virginia. They get jobs on his TV network, and gradually draw an audience, thereby allowing them to eventually break off on their own to start PTL (Praise the Lord), a TV network with religious programming that basically also sells the product of Jim and Tammy Faye, much in the way that Donald Trump's presidency wasn't so much a platform for his adopted political party, but rather a way to consistently give himself attention.

Jones's somewhat icy mother figure may not have been warm toward her daughter, but she's not wrong when she criticizes Tammy Faye's lifestyle, although she's later quick to accept a fancy coat. Meanwhile, there are other forces with which to contend, including the homophobic, back-stabbing Jerry Falwell (Vincent D'Onofrio, also physically disappearing into the role), who is rubbed the wrong way by Tammy Faye's overt "feminism," which is basically just her voicing her opinion now and again among the boys' club of televangelists and religious charlatans.

One thing with which I'll credit the film: It spends a decent amount of time portraying Tammy Faye as an unlikely ally for the LGBTQ movement of the time, often sticking up for homosexuals during arguments with people like Falwell, who spits out hatred toward Democrats, feminists and LGBTQ people. And there's a touching sequence during her talk show in which she brings on a gay man with AIDS (this is the 1980s) and chastises parents who'd turn their backs on their children because of their sexual orientation.

Naturally, I was a little leery of this, but sure enough Tammy Faye apparently was a long-time supporter of gay rights and marched in gay pride parades, despite being married to Bakker, who, well let's say, wasn't, despite accusations that he was closeted.

Then, of course, we get the rise-and-fall scenario we typically get in movies about celebrities who rise and, yep, fall. It's all a little too familiar and the last 20 minutes or so tend to drag it out a little more than is necessary - although there's a good scene in which we once again get reminded of how much of a snake Falwell was. 

Carrying the entire picture on her shoulders is Chastain, who gives a superb performance here, capturing Tammy Faye in all her bubbly enthusiasm, but harboring melancholy just below the surface. A scene in which she catches her husband and some crew members making fun of her behind her back is near devastating, and it's hard not to feel sympathy for her, even though she wasn't likely too in the dark about her husband's shady business dealings.

"The Eyes of Tammy Faye" isn't a great biopic, but it's pretty decent, and it features some strong performances. No, it doesn't deviate too much from the documentary on which it was based, but it also doesn't play too much like a greatest hits package of that previous film to become dull. Expect Chastain to get mentioned around awards time. She deserves to be.