The Boss

The Boss

Starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Bell, Peter Dinklage, Ella Anderson

Directed by Ben Falcone

The Story:
As a child, Michelle Darnell was raised in an orphanage, having been rejected by potential family after family after family.  She vows to never let love get in the way of success, and now, as an adult woman (Melissa McCarthy), she's one of the wealthiest women in America, and leads conferences on how to be wealthy.

Her personal assistant, Claire (Kristen Bell) is constantly being berated by Michelle, yet she's dutiful at her job, until Michelle's ex Renault (Peter Dinklage) calls the police and has her arrested on insider trading charges.  She spends five months in prison, while her empire crumbles around her.

After getting out of jail, Michelle finds that she has nothing, so she goes to Claire's in hopes of getting her life back on track.  After taking Claire's daughter Rachel (Ella Anderson) to a Dandelions (aka Girl Scouts) meeting, she gets her next big idea - market Claire's personal brownie recipe and make a huge profit.  As she works her way back to the top, has Michelle really changed her ways, or is she still as devious as ever?

The Synopsis:
Melissa McCarthy is the go-to woman for modern comedies.  She's had a slew of hits ("Bridesmaids," "The Heat," Spy") and some not-so-great flops ("Tammy"), and no matter what type of character she's starring as - be it a bridesmaid, a criminal, a wannabe spy - she always has the same pitch: a woman wanting to be something she's not, and doing hilarious antics to prove that she can actually achieve it.  It's what's most endearing to her.

With "The Boss," she sheds the wannabe status and moves right on to complete status at the start of the film.  She isn't a mild-mannered woman who wants to be a big business success - she already is.  She has nowhere to go but down, and that's what's different about her role here.  She's already a conceited, stuck-up, care only for herself type of person, and you can tell right away things will go bad for her.

Directed by her husband Ben Falcone (who also served as a hilarious cameo as her lawyer), and co-written by the couple, this seems to the the film McCarthy wanted to do to cast off her almost stereotypical role, and yet in doing so she creates a stereotypical character.  You can see three steps ahead, and you know how everything will eventually turn out.

You know from the beginning that she doesn't hold family values as an important life virtue: it's all about money.  There's even a scene between her and her former mentor (a fantastic cameo by Kathy Bates) where they talk about family, and Michelle says she doesn't care about family.  What is the next scene?  You guessed it: a heartfelt family scene where Claire's young daughter gives Michelle a heartfelt homemade gift.  You can tell what happens next.  They all live happily ever after, not having any uncomfortable situations and no backstabbing.  Or...not.  That's where McCarthy writes Michelle as a one-note character, someone who is so depressing that she's hardly as funny as she could be.

For a comedy to be really successful, it has to inherently be funny at heart.  With "The Boss," the humor is mixed with sappiness and odd emotional highs and lows that pull you from the entertainment and makes you feel bad for Michelle, then bad for Rachel, bad for Claire, bad for Spaghetti (you'd get it when you see the film), and the classic McCarthy slapstick comedy is gone. 

If this was a different vehicle helmed by a different female lead, it would've been an unmitigated disaster.  Kristen Bell's role could've been performed by any other female actress, and all the other roles could've been intermixed with a different person (Peter Dinklage's performance alone was quirky enough that it could've been done by anyone).  However, since this was a Melissa McCarthy lead movie, it had just enough humor to pull off a decent performance, but not one you'll be remembering and laughing about later.  Except for that epic Dandelion/Darnell's Darlings girl scout fight straight out of "Anchorman" territory (oddly enough, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay both served as producers here.  Why McCarthy and Ferrell haven't done their own comedy together yet is beyond me). 

The Summary:
Although "The Boss" delivers some truly laugh-out-loud moments, its sappy nature and predictable story have much to be desired, but McCarthy manages to save it from monotony.

The Score: B+