Off the Rails

“Trainwreck”

Subway smooches

Having been newly appointed as a journalist for the Entertainment section of Perdeby (the campus newspaper for the University of Pretoria), when I watched Judd Apatow's new film Trainwreck, I was delighted to have finally found a mainstream movie with a main character to whose career I could relate, in more than an entirely broad and admittedly minimal sense. Though I have certainly seen movies before now that feature journalists - and loved some, such as All About Eve, which features a journalist doing pretty much the job I shall be doing (a little less sardonically than he, I hope) - I wasn’t a journalist when I watched them. Now, having started a blog and having been assigned the task of writing articles on certain topics by certain dates, I have a new appreciation for the work done by Amy Townsend (the protagonist of Trainwreck, played by Amy Schumer), and some sympathy for the difficulties she faces doing it.

I definitely must state, for the shorthand record, that my delight in Trainwreck is not mainly because of this coincidence in job titles, nor was it the main source of my excitement to see the film. That would be, firstly, that it is directed by Judd Apatow, one of my favourite and one of the finest filmmakers active in mainstream cinema today, and, secondly, because it stars - and was written by - Schumer, no doubt the funniest and most talented young lady currently working in American comedy. And the film delivers on the expectations of his and her breathlessly ardent fans: Trainwreck is crafted and polished throughout with Apatow’s remarkable good sense and flair for tone, placing the camera in an optimal position and keeping it there until the frame is filled with his ideas and his images; and the crisp, tremendously funny dialogue and one-liners is worthy of the best of Schumer’s routines and sketches on her Comedy Central show, Inside Amy Schumer.

The plot is easy enough to understand, no matter how often your attention is distracted by the uproarious humour. Amy works for a glossy men’s magazine (nauseating in its misogyny and crassness) called S’nuff, where her editor and boss is a caustic woman named Diana (Tilda Swinton, with an extravagant blonde wig and mordant British accent). She’s in a less-than-fulfilling relationship with the bodybuilder Steve (John Cena) - who seems to be more into men than he is into Amy - which she supposes to be a casual and open one; on many evenings she teeters home with some one-night stand, making sure not to allow any sleeping over or promises of courtship. And her professional expectations are as dire as her romantic ones: she’s considered the strongest writer at the magazine by Diana, but she sticks to topics in which she can disparage others, passing snide and cheap commentary on other people’s efforts. When a profile of a doctor for star athletes - Aaron Conners (Bill Hader) - is pitched by one of her colleagues at an editorial meeting, and Diana learns that Amy is completely contemptuous of sports, she assigns the profile to Amy, who sulkily agrees to meet Aaron hoping it will help her chances for a promotion.

The rest of the plot is the development of the relationship between Amy and Aaron. She must obviously break it off with Steve – as, indeed, she should have done earlier – and the scene in which she does, packed as it is with zingers, is ultimately tender and even crushing for the plain effect put through by Cena, when his character reveals more substance in his affections than we, or Amy, had ever supposed were there.

Apatow is held in such exceedingly high regard by me for a few reasons. One – shown to be quite significant in this film – is his direction on the set; to be specific, his direction of actors. I have no idea what is required of a director to elicit such beautifully personal, sparklingly nuanced, exhilaratingly inventive, and refreshingly idiosyncratic performances, but if it were an easy task we should surely be seeing a lot more like what we’re given here. Apatow creates just the right atmosphere on set and on camera to allow Schumer to exaggerate and send forth the dogsbodies of her astounding comedic faculties, but without letting her detach herself from the integrated fabric of the film. Hader shows us the real person beneath what was a (admittedly hilarious) mask up until now. We’ve always known that Swinton is both one of the most talented and one of the most naturally enthralling screen presences, and, as derisive a boss as she is (which, I feel I must point out, is very far removed from any of the editors I’ve encountered at Perdeby), and as scornful both of her female employees and female readers as she is, there is nothing I’ve seen in movies so far this year that is as magnetic and intoxicating as what she is in Trainwreck.

Trainwreck is a refreshingly and clearly emotionally honest movie, in which the emotions and crises of the character Amy are distilled and intensified, and the resolutions of her life’s dissonances is amplified to something more than mere happenings, or a lightening of mood. The film is one of self-resentment and contempt (“What is wrong with you that you want to be with me?” she asks Aaron between sobs during an argument), and, following that, of self-discovery, and redemption through success in romance.

Trainwreck has faced the common criticism of Apatow’s films, which is that it’s a little too long. I differ decidedly on that point – it’s about an hour too short. Richard Brody has noted that the two ideal lengths for a movie are an hour an three minutes, and three hours. Trainwreck is just over two hours. The hour that’s missing is one in which the characters and their visions collide in a sometimes frightening, often exhilarating spectacle. Much of it is in Apatow’s earlier hit, Knocked Up, but only snatches are included in the later This is 40, and it’s just hinted at in Trainwreck. It’s the characters’ opportunities to reveal their dreams, their fears, their insecurities, their angers, and more. Here is where the inner lives would be most tenderly and, simultaneously, most furiously intensified, and the peculiarities of each character would come to the fore. The success of such a sequence – which I suppose to be within the powers of Apatow – would surely be something cathartic for any audience member willing to submit himself to its potency.

Trainwreck is directed by Judd Apatow; written by Amy Schumer; music by Jon Brion; director of photography, Jody Lee Lipes; edited by Paul Zucker. Running Time: 124 minutes. 2015.

STARRING: Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Brie Larson, Colin Quinn, John Cena, Vanessa Bayer, Mike Birbiglia, Ezra Miller, Tilda Swinton, LeBron James, Daniel Radcliffe, Marisa Tomei

Daniel Radcliffe and Marisa Tomei in the high-art "Dog Walker"