{"id":9815,"date":"2024-12-10T17:46:09","date_gmt":"2024-12-10T22:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9815"},"modified":"2024-12-10T17:46:09","modified_gmt":"2024-12-10T22:46:09","slug":"the-eyes-of-tammy-faye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/12\/10\/the-eyes-of-tammy-faye\/","title":{"rendered":"The Eyes of Tammy Faye"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Eyes of Tammy Faye<\/strong> (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Searchlight\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 126 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (sexual content, drug abuse)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Showalter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Abe Sylvia\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Theodore Shapiro\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Michael Gioulakis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 17, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jessica Chastain, Andrew Garfield, Cherry Jones, Vincent D\u2019Onofrio, Mark Wystrach, Sam Jaeger, Louis Cancelmi, Gabriel Olds, Fredric Lehne, Chandler Head, James Huguley, Randy Havens, Lila Jane Meadows.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $3.8M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0When Copernicus determined the sun is the center of the universe, he never considered the possibility of alternate universes and their centers. Even if he had, he still wouldn\u2019t have discovered the bright, shiny star that was Tammy Faye Bakker. The wife of disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker, she\u2019s definitely the center of her own universe according to the biopic The Eyes of Tammy Faye<\/strong>. Directed by Michael Showalter (The Big Sick), the late Tammy Faye is portrayed by Jessica Chastain (Interstellar) in a singular performance destined to reach the same cult heights as Faye Dunaway\u2019s Joan Crawford. She\u2019s also the best thing about the film.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Eyes of Tammy Faye<\/strong> takes us through a substantial portion of its subject\u2019s life starting from her impoverished childhood in rural International Falls, MN where she first found religion despite the objections of her bitter mother (Jones, 24) whose divorce from Tammy\u2019s father was frowned upon by the church. It then takes us to her first meeting with future husband Jim Bakker (Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge) at North Central Bible College and their subsequent marriage a year later. They got their start on television after being discovered by a rep of Pat Robertson (Olds, Calendar Girl) at a roadside motel. Their show Jim and Tammy aired on CBN for nearly a decade before they departed for Jim to found The PTL Club in \u201974. Their ministry soon evolved into the PTL Network and made the Bakkers extremely wealthy. That, of course, led to huge problems for them in the 80s.<\/p>\n

\u00a0If you were around (and aware) in the 80s, you must remember the scandal that brought down the house that Jim and Tammy built. In short, Jim bilked his \u201cpartners\u201d (as he called them) out of millions in donations to his ministry. Not only that, it came out he had an illicit sexual encounter with church secretary Jessica Hahn. Allegations of homosexuality were also made. He was forced to step aside as PTL head which paved the way for a takeover by Reverend Jerry Falwell (D\u2019Onofrio, Full Metal Jacket). All the while (save for a brief affair and drug addiction), Tammy Faye stood by her man, crying on TV as needed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s difficult to say how I feel about The Eyes of Tammy Faye<\/strong>. It\u2019s not that I hate or dislike it; I just don\u2019t know how to take it. It\u2019s being characterized as a drama, but it feels an awful lot like a comedy at times. Jim and Tammy Faye are two figures who lend themselves extremely well to satire. The same can be said of Falwell who\u2019s painted as a sanctimonious, homophobic ass who practices deceit more than what he preaches. It could be argued that the broad performances of the two leads are meant to be comedic until you remember that the real Jim and Tammy Faye had larger-than-life personalities. Still, it\u2019s kind of hard to take Garfield seriously in the role. He always looks like he\u2019s ready to burst out laughing and he has this twerpy voice that undermines his efforts at being a serious actor. To be fair, he was great in Hacksaw Ridge, but he sucked as Spider-Man.<\/p>\n

The other problem with The Eyes of Tammy Faye<\/strong> is the underdeveloped script by Abe Sylvia (Dirty Girl) who based his screenplay on the 2000 documentary of the same name by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato. It doesn\u2019t explore the major events in Tammy Faye\u2019s life with any real depth. It plays out, for the most part, like a highlights reel. It basically glosses over the whole Jessica Hahn thing which isn\u2019t good considering she was a major part of that sordid tale. It leaves out crucial information like Tammy Faye marrying developer Roe Messner (Jaeger, Parenthood) after her divorce from Jim. He\u2019s the guy who built Jim\u2019s Christian-themed water park. It\u2019s odd Showalter never mentions it. Characters come and go without explanation. The movie tends to forget the Bakkers had children (two to be exact); we never see how the scandal affects them. Basically, the screenplay is bit of a mess.<\/p>\n

\u00a0No doubt, The Eyes of Tammy Faye <\/strong>is Tammy Faye\u2019s show all the way. With her gaudy outfits and trademark heavy makeup, she\u2019s every bit the star as any Hollywood actress. The thing is she\u2019s also a genuine person who truly cares about people. In a time when evangelicals were condemning gays to hell and saying AIDS is a punishment from God, Tammy Faye accepted them as fellow children of God. She preached acceptance even interviewing an AIDS patient on her talk show. As kind as she was, she was also foolish and na\u00efve, blindly following her husband into an opulent lifestyle funded by lies, dishonesty and deceit. Chastain captures it all and creates a memorable interpretation of Tammy Faye.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Eyes of Tammy Faye<\/strong> isn\u2019t breaking records at the box office, but I predict it will be this generation\u2019s Mommie Dearest, especially with Chastain\u2019s campy performance. The real Tammy Faye, who died of cancer in 2007, was a gay icon in her final years. I can see fans showing up to midnight screenings dressed in their Tammy Faye finest. It\u2019s not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it is unforgettable.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Searchlight\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 126 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (sexual content, drug abuse)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Showalter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Abe Sylvia\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Theodore Shapiro\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Michael Gioulakis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 17, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jessica Chastain, Andrew Garfield, Cherry Jones, Vincent D\u2019Onofrio, Mark Wystrach, Sam Jaeger, Louis Cancelmi, Gabriel Olds, Fredric Lehne, Chandler Head, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/The-Eyes-of-Tammy-Faye-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9815"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10060,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9815\/revisions\/10060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}