Kurt Loder Reviews Tammy

Actors have to work with the physical equipment they've been given, naturally. Melissa McCarthy is a big woman, but her weight has usually been a background element in her performances – it's her nimble comic delivery and buoyant personality that have made her a star. So, writes Kurt Loder, it's dispiriting to see her, in Tammy, stooping to play a character who can only be described as a fat slob. The movie's terrible script, a first-time effort by McCarthy and her husband, Ben Falcone, has the titular Tammy lusting after pies and donuts and, in one grotesque bar scene, coquettishly coming on to strangers who reject her out of hand. It's hard to say what's more baffling: that the director – Falcone again, making an unpromising debut in this function as well – gives us so many full-length shots of Tammy waddling around in unflattering getups (black tights at one point), or that McCarthy, also one of the film's producers, approved of his doing so.