It's a biopic of infamous and ridiculed televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker (Jessica Chastain). As a child of divorce, she was ostracized by her church. Her mother Rachel Grover (Cherry Jones) wants her to stay quiet and unnoticed. Tammy refuses and falls under the holy spirit. She marries Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield) and together start the wildly successful The PTL Club.
In popular culture, Tammy Faye Bakker has become a cartoon, a caricature, a tragic clown. For this to truly work beyond a biopic, this movie needs to make her flesh and blood human. It is able to achieve that but only part way. At the end of the day, this movie is doing too much about her makeup and not enough about her inner faith. It's an interesting start to have her talk in tongues. I thought the movie would do more about talking to God and being obsessed religiously. It's doing the basics. It's unwilling to dig too far. It comments on Jim's sexual sinning but it doesn't actually show it. I can accept that since Tammy wouldn't have seen it. This is Tammy's movie, not Jim's. It just needs to dig deeper into her soul, maybe even deeper than she is willing to do.
In popular culture, Tammy Faye Bakker has become a cartoon, a caricature, a tragic clown. For this to truly work beyond a biopic, this movie needs to make her flesh and blood human. It is able to achieve that but only part way. At the end of the day, this movie is doing too much about her makeup and not enough about her inner faith. It's an interesting start to have her talk in tongues. I thought the movie would do more about talking to God and being obsessed religiously. It's doing the basics. It's unwilling to dig too far. It comments on Jim's sexual sinning but it doesn't actually show it. I can accept that since Tammy wouldn't have seen it. This is Tammy's movie, not Jim's. It just needs to dig deeper into her soul, maybe even deeper than she is willing to do.