Life of the Party

Life of the Party

Starring Melissa McCarthy, Molly Gordon, Gillian Jacobs, Maya Rudolph

Directed by Ben Falcone

The Story:
Doting mother Deanna (Melissa McCarthy) has watched over her college daughter Maddie (Molly Gordon) all her life, and as she's about to enter her senior year at college, can't be more proud.  Then her husband (Matt Walsh) abruptly declares he wants a divorce, and Deanna realizes that she gave up on her biggest dream - graduating college with a degree in archaeology - because of him.  So she re-enrolls to finish out her senior year with her daughter, and learns more about life and teaches others about the importance of acceptance and being yourself.

The Synopsis:
Melissa McCarthy is one of today's most ingenious comediennes, who first burst into the limelight in her Oscar-nominated performance in "Bridesmaids."  Since then, she's had a string of hits ("The Boss," "Spy," "Identity Thief," "The Heat") and misses ("Tammy," "Ghostbusters"), but one thing has always remained consistent: she has this indelible spirit that makes you just love her no matter what you see her in.  She plays the "everywoman" character so well that she seemed to be born for that type of character, and she can easily compete with the best comedians in history and come out on top.

Her husband, Ben Falcone, often directs the actress in films, and does so here (the two also co-wrote the script), and while the film does alright, it does seem to heavily favor McCarthy's Deanna over anyone else - hardly any other character has any character development or screen presence, as the entire story revolves around Deanna's quest to graduate with a degree that she failed to get decades earlier.

Thankfully, McCarthy has a darling screen presence that you can't help but root for her as she goes through several bumps on her way to graduation day, but the film also stumbles on the pitfall of a "generic comedy" style: after the character introductions, we're given the predicament, a seemingly simple way to overcome it, going the total opposite insanely complicated way instead, hitting a stumbling block, overcoming it, learning a lesson, and tying up all loose ends.  To that end, the film looks like it was written by a freshman film study major for his final grade, but I wasn't going in expecting anything that would literally blow my mind anyway.

McCarthy shines more when she's able to completely let loose and drop the F-bombs like its hot, but since this is a more family-friendly PG-13 rating, she's not allowed to fully express herself in the unique way only she manages to do.  Sure, Deanna is adorable and lovable, but what else is there to her?  We know she gave up on her dream to marry the man of her dreams and start a family, and once her man became her nightmare, she set out to re-claim that which was lost to her.  We then get the classic stereotypical "older person goes back to college" routine where she's completely outdated, picked on by some younger prettier girls, and experiences hallucinogenic drug trips from drugged-up food.  Again, though, since it's Melissa McCarthy, we can bypass the generalities and still enjoy the ride for what it is - nothing stellar, but nothing mind-numbingly terrible either.

As the film focuses on McCarthy, the other characters get relegated to serving as her unique posse in a sense that you probably wouldn't experience this in the real world.  Her daughter is at first apprehensive about going to college with her mother (which is actually a normal reaction), but soon changes her mind and fully accepts her mother there because...reasons?  We don't really get why her daughter has a complete 180, but we're just left to assume it's because Deanna is just so darn lovable.

The girl closest to Deanna at the sorority is Helen, played by "Community" star Gillian Jacobs.  She gets a decent backstory about being a girl in a coma for eight years, but other than that we don't really see much out of her - she's clearly flunking an archaeology course that she's in with Deanna, but we never see that story come to fruition.  Ditto for the other two relatively unnamed friends in the sorority - the "pretty one" (who apparently is named Amanda, although I didn't know that) who struggles with self-image, and the "moron" (who apparently is named Debbie, although I also didn't know that) who fears she made a mistake with her life.  Again, neither story gets developed, and we're left to wonder their fates - if we actually cared.

Then there's Deanna's new love interest, Jack.  Jack is essentially the big man on campus, or at least that's what we're led to believe, but instead of eyeing the hot young thing, he has the hots for Deanna.  Maybe he has mommy issues, but it's very hard to believe that a man of Jack's caliber would fall for someone like Deanna in real life, but since this was a script co-written by McCarthy, it's obvious to see why this would happen.  While Jack has an interesting story to tell as well, we don't get to hear it - again, his character is completely glossed over and his motives are completely foreign to us.

The only other character that really pops is Deanna's best friend Christine, played by the ever-amazing Maya Rudolph.  She dominates the screen, and you can tell there's a power struggle between the two actresses not in a negative way, but both women are at the top of their game and deliver the heck out of their performances.

Finally, we're left with Deanna's decision to finish college and the struggles that come with it.  We wonder how the heck a divorcee who doesn't even have a job can afford to go to college, which leads to a shocking near-finale event that leaves us wondering if they left a whole hour of film on the cutting room floor, because it literally comes out of nowhere.  We're led to believe Deanna can't speak in public (and goes through great torture during a lecture she has to give for her midterm), yet she can hit the dance floor like the best of them without batting an eye.  There's several inconsistencies the film delivers, and poorly developed characters, but darnit if McCarthy doesn't make up for it.


There's an important message about self-acceptance and the power of unity of women, which are both muddied when the mean girls pick on Deanna and she dishes it back at them, then chooses to forgive them, then the mean girls up their meanness, and then it all kind of putters out without any definite conclusion.  Deanna is a force of nature, and she does choose to see the best in people and help them see it themselves, and that's the bright shining light in this film - we need to treat each other better, see past our outer imperfections and find the good in all of us.

The Summary:While it's not her best work, it's far from her worst, leading "Life of the Party" to be one of those forgettable comedies in Melissa McCarthy's catalogue of films that delivered the laughs at first, then left us wondering what we thought was so funny.

The Score: B