MOVIE REVIEW
“Trainwreck”
Grade: B+
Starring Amy Schumer, Bill Hader and Colin Quinn. Directed by Judd Apatow.
Rated R for strong sexual content, nudity, language and some drug use. Check listings for theaters. 2 hours, 2 minutes.
Bottom line: It is all kinds of funny.
If you’ve seen “Spy” with Melissa McCarthy, you’re already aware that the movie nails its first big laugh — the sneezing-assassin joke — within moments of the opening credits. Even if you know it’s coming, the timing is just right. And right away you think: There. Thank you. These people know what they’re doing.
At the risk of raising expectations, the first few scenes are among the best director Judd Apatow has ever done, in or out of the “40 Year-Old Virgin”/”Knocked Up” universe of arrested-development guydom. “Trainwreck” hails from the universe next door: arrested-development broadville. Amy Schumer plays a fictionalized variation on herself, also named Amy, or more accurately a variation on the stand-up and “Inside Amy Schumer” Comedy Central personae that have carried Schumer to her current showbiz location.
The opening flashback sequence features Colin Quinn explaining to his two pre-teen daughters the futility and frustration of monogamy. Her childhood established in quick, deft expositional strokes — divorced parents; deceased mother; unrepentant horn-dog father afflicted with MS — we travel forward with Schumer’s Amy to the present. Her zesty, boozy, emotionally guarded love life includes more sex than love but she doesn’t mind. Does she?
At any rate, she does not like her men to sleep over. Our guide to Manhattan romance writes for a sub-Cosmo magazine called “S’Nuff,” edited by a ferociously egocentric boss played by a barely recognizable Tilda Swinton. The plot of “Trainwreck” is simple. Amy’s assigned to profile a successful Manhattan sports medicine specialist, Aaron, played by Bill Hader. One abrupt but highly promising sleepover later, Aaron’s convinced they should date. Amy resists. The movie cooks up some conflict to divide these lovers for a while, around the two-thirds point, before Amy reckons with her more destructive and immature instincts.
The movie wouldn’t be much fun without them, of course. “Trainwreck” is all kinds of funny, and like any talent showcase worth its salt, the tone of the humor adjusts to suit the talents on screen.
Apatow generally has trouble with his wrap-ups, and the final third or so of “Trainwreck” feels longish and full of detours.
The laughs in “Trainwreck” may come with an apology (the character describes herself as “broken”), but you believe the character’s transformation by romantic love, chiefly because Schumer and Hader are wonderful together. Gender inequity in the world of comedy deserves all the overdue attention it’s getting, and more. But there are matters of craft, wit (no matter how crude the jokes) and timing that transcend chromosomes. In “Trainwreck,” when Amy is about to vomit while watching a surgical procedure from behind a glass wall, the bit is so carefully calibrated, and so aptly filmed in long shot, with precisely the right amount of fake puke, you think: These people know what they’re doing.
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