Taming of the Schumer (MOVIE SPOILER)

 "This is the way the world ends
    Not with a bang but a whimper."

                                                                                               - T.S. Eliot

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In what I assume will be a welcome departure from one of my usual posts, where I expound upon my icky feelings and emotions and the general shittiness of my life, I've decided to write a little review about the film "Trainwreck", which I took in last weekend. I had high hopes for the Amy Schumer vehicle, which seems to have at last made her a household name. I've been an ardent fan of Schumer's for years. I don't want to say, "I loved her before anyone knew who she was!", but it's pretty much true. My facebook friends can attest that I have inundated them with clips from her Comedy Central show, "Inside Amy Schumer", since its premiere.

I have always found Amy to be so delightfully-relatable, so candid, brave and honest. I saw so much of myself in her comedy, with its many references to body image issues, dysfunctional family dynamics, romantic disasters, drinking binges and aversion to traditional constructs of marriage and child-rearing.

Witness, if you will, her "One Night Stand" skit, in which a giggling woman with tussled hair leaves a man's apartment of a Saturday morning. A split screen shows how each of their respective days play out: Hers, involving meeting her friends for brunch and gushing over her new beau, sending him a flirty text message, then opening a joint bank account for the two of them and checking out possible wedding venues. He, in the meantime, whiles away the day nursing his hangover and playing video games, and tells his friend, over beer, that he "didn't get up to much" the night before. He also takes a prolonged nap and has a good wank session to the image of a busty Italian mother on the side of a pasta sauce container. When she calls him, asking what they are doing that evening, he doesn't even know who she is.

Schumer's comedy is thoughtful and obviously born of past foibles, heartaches and regrets. Self-effacing, gutsy and instantly endearing, she's been one of my favourite comediennes since I first became aware of her on the stand-up circuit.Thus, last weekend, with a heart full of hope and a purse full of beer, I entered the darkened theatre and hunkered down for what I hoped was going to be a satisfying dose of Schumerian sass.

For the most part, I was not let down. Amy served up her usual shock-value based hilarity, somehow managing to make a life of functional alcoholism and meaningless, unprotected sexual encounters look pretty damn glamorous in the process. The reason, of course, was that, just like in her TV series and stand up routines, she (and her character) completely owned their questionable life choices, giving not one single fuck about what anyone else thought. As I happily popped the hissing tab on my can of Stella Artois while deftly ignoring the admonishing glare of a fellow movie patron in my row, I thought, "Yeah. Giving no fucks, indeed".

Since "Trainwreck" is, of course, a story about romance, it stood to reason that Amy's leading man,  a sports physician named Aaron Conners (played by Bill Hader), would be introduced fairly early on in the film. As expected, Amy and Aaron are opposites in almost every way, yet somehow manage to form a pretty solid bond. He is conservative, he loves sports, his favourite song is "Uptown Girl".  He even asserts that he "doesn't mind" the fact that Amy's slept with a lot of men, or that she smokes weed and drinks excessively.

At one point, Aaron takes Amy to a Knicks game, where they sit courtside, and she observes the pregame cheerleading routine with obvious discomfort and disdain. To mask her insecurity over half-clad women prancing around in front of her boyfriend, she makes snide comments and heckles the cheerleaders with, "You're going to lose us the right to vote!" Aaron suggests that maybe she doesn't like cheerleaders because they are "positive, and bring people together". Barf, Aaron.

Eventually and inevitably, things go off the rails for the unlikely pair. At about 77% of the way through the movie, (the approximate time at which this is supposed to occur), we come to the Low Point, at which Amy's family isn't talking to her and Aaron, who finally reveals that he does indeed have a problem with her lifestyle, has walked out. While we are shown a montage of both of the characters struggling through depression and loss to get on with their lives, it is, curiously, only Amy's character who decides to make some huge life changes in an effort to win Aaron back.

We see her flying about her apartment, collecting every half-drank bottle of alcohol ((I highly doubt her character would have left that much untouched)), as well as her formidable bong, and handing it all to a homeless man who hangs about outside her building. While the changes the character is making are probably healthy ones, the underlying message that disturbed me was that positive life changes should only be made to impress or win back the affection of someone who doesn't like you for who you are.

The final disappointment comes at the end of the film, when Amy dons the skimpy costume that she decried as sexist not an hour before, and performs her own peppy, 15 minute cheerleading routine alongside the Knicks cheerleaders, for an astounded and impressed Aaron. Of course, he immediately takes her back. And with this final scene, my worst fears were confirmed. The message here was glaringly-obvious: Change everything about yourself, your lifestyle and your beliefs, to suit someone who isn't going to make a single change to compromise with you, or else you'll end up an old spinster. Thus, "Trainwreck", although at times completely hilarious, proves to be nothing more than a modern-day "Taming of the Shrew". How disappointing a message to independent females everywhere, especially coming from a comedienne of such unapologetic veritas as Schumer.