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“The Boss,” a comedy starring Melissa McCarthy and directed by her husband, Ben Falcone, is a film that is more interesting to talk about than to watch in its entirety. That isn’t much of a compliment, considering that this is the worst kind of bad movie. There is nothing actively, confidently, exuberantly bad about this film about a disgraced businesswoman who is trying to reinvent herself. It isn’t bad in a way that engages you and forces you to react. It’s detrimental in a passive way. It shifts gears to serve no discernible purpose and causes events to occur that do not constitute “events” in any meaningful sense, and throughout its final hour, it keeps jumping into your lap and demanding love without having done anything to earn your affection.
As I mentioned earlier, Melissa McCarthy portrays a disgraced businesswoman who is attempting to reinvent herself. If that description had been the primary driving force behind “The Boss,” the film might have had a little more zing to it. McCarthy is a brilliant physical comedian who specializes in a particular style of clowning: id-monster, reptilian brain clowning, among other things. When she crashes through a wall, spouting gibberish, she manages to make you believe that she is actually doing something real. In the same way that Jonathan Winters and Chris Farley shine when they are upsetting the status quo—when unthinkable desires suddenly seize her characters or unacceptable thoughts make their way out of their heads and manifest themselves as uncalled-for, bizarre, or hurtful observations—she shines when she is disrupting the established order. However, that is not what she is doing in this situation. She’s primarily pleading for affection in this scene.
However, the more subtly McCarthy’s other star vehicles have incorporated this “please love me” premise, the more focused and entertaining they tend to be in general. McCarthy’s other star vehicles have incorporated this “please love me” premise, but in general the less obviously her films go to that well, the more focused and entertaining they tend to be in general (which is one reason why “Spy” is a better film than “Identity Thief”). Michelle Darnell, McCarthy’s character in “The Boss,” is a self-help guru and businesswoman extraordinaire who grew up in an orphanage where she was repeatedly matched with potential adoptive families, all of whom rejected her and returned her to the care of the sisters. McCarthy plays Michelle Darnell in the film “The Boss.” The movie robs her of all distinguishing characteristics, with the exception of poor impulse control and a pathological need for attention. It’s depressing and off-putting when the neediness takes over everything else (which happens around the 15 or 20 minute mark), and there are no redeeming qualities (brilliantly staged slapstick, well-rounded characters, audacious images) to distract you from how tedious it all is.
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What a shame, because the filmmakers might have had a real winner on their hands. The first ten minutes of the film do an excellent job of explaining, within the confines of super-broad comedy, how this woman turned her feelings of loneliness and rejection into a career of financial prosperity. Large auditoriums are packed with people who have come to hear Michelle preach the gospel of wealth and autonomy: cutting off relationships with people who are dragging you down, not caring what anyone thinks of your ambition and appetite, and doing whatever it takes to get an edge over your competitors. Michelle makes her grand entrance on top of a massive sculpture of a phoenix, a mythological animal that will later serve as an inspirational symbol for the audience. By promising to teach them how to make “some real f——-g money!” she whips ticket buyers into a frenzy. As written by McCarthy, Falcone, and Steve Mallory, this sequence, as well as the one that follows it, has a lighthearted satirical tinge to it. Although we were unaware of the orphanage background, we would have deduced that the heroine grew up poor because she only thinks about money in terms of what she can buy with it and her idea of how rich people live is a cartoon fantasy of fancy cars, country clubs, hotel suites (complete with valets), valets, and self-portraits. Observing Michelle make money off of people who also see money as a means of vindication and happiness is exhilarating to witness. There’s a metaphor for modern America hidden somewhere in this film, and “The Boss” comes dangerously close to discovering it.
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Michelle is then sentenced to prison for insider trading by her former lover (a crazed-eyed Peter Dinklage who completely commits to a small, weird role) after he learns of her affair. When she is released, she has no money, no property, and no legal status, and she is effectively homeless. It is through Claire (Kristen Bell), her former assistant, that she insinuates herself into the lives of both Claire and her daughter, Rachel (Ella Anderson). When Claire’s baking skills aren’t enough, Michelle comes up with the brilliant idea of creating a product line that will displace the film’s Girl Scout stand-in, a nonprofit organization that sells cookies all over the country.
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Once Michelle makes rash, life-altering decisions without their consent, the majority of the film’s scenes revolve around Claire and Rachel’s reactions to Michelle’s actions, with the focus always returning to whether or not Michelle will accept the unconditional love freely offered by the adorable Rachel. As the more experienced member of the trio, Bell, who has previously appeared in screwball comedies and hard-boiled roles, is completely wasted in a role that could have been played by anyone.
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Some of the slapstick in “The Boss” is particularly amusing, such as a scene during a teeth-whitening session in which McCarthy speaks with her lips drawn back to expose her gums and a clash of rival girl-gangs that is a rip-off of the battle of the news teams in “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.” “The Boss” is rated R for language and violence. However, the mindless sappiness (which, in contrast to sentimentality, is considered a sin in comedy) completely ruins everything. Although Michelle is portrayed as a strong businesswoman, the film has no point of view on her other than that she needs and should receive support. The film expresses this notion in such a haphazard manner, repeatedly hammering on what the filmmakers believe to be your buttons, that it makes a supposedly fearsome businesswoman appear incompetent, deranged, and pathetic.
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Ron Rosenbaum, the great cultural critic, wrote an article titled “Dear Albert Brooks: Please Don’t Go Warm,” in which he discussed “how warmth ruins comics,” which was published seventeen years ago. He wasn’t referring to comedians who act in dramas; that’s a different mode, and there are many successful examples of performers who switch between them; rather, he was referring to the tendency of great screen clowns to re-tool their abrasive, chaotic, even demonic screen personas and appear in films that are all about how sweet their characters are deep down, and how the world just needs more love, and so on and so forth. The fictional notes from a studio executive to Brooks were intended to be addressed to Brooks, but they could just as easily have been addressed to Steve Martin, Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, and a slew of other comics: “You can be more than a comic; you should be a star, a leading man, and leading men must be lovable.” Make yourself a little more comfortable. “Create the image of a romantic hero for yourself.” Playing this game is extremely dangerous, and McCarthy makes a costly mistake here. With the exception of Melissa McCarthy groveling for affection from the same viewers who have already purchased tickets to see her, there’s nothing going on in “The Boss.”
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