I may be mistaken but televangelism seems like a uniquely American phenomenon. I can’t see it taking off anywhere else, there’s just not that same level of intense Christian fervour present to cloud such an obvious scam. Because that is all televangelism, or the “prosperity gospel” as its’ sometimes called, is: a means of enriching grifters who know how to work a crowds’ collective insecurities and biases by invoking the name of God and the promise of salvation. It’s a whole cottage industry in the States -figures like Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, and Paula White have become millionaires off of exploiting vulnerable and gullible Christians across the country. And one of the most infamous is Jim Bakker -one of the few to actually suffer consequences for his con.
But The Eyes of Tammy Faye isn’t about Jim -in fact, it explicitly isn’t, focusing instead on his far more colourful and charismatic wife and artistic partner during the 1970s and 80s when they ran a series of programs for basic cable Christian networks. Tammy Faye is in general a more interesting figure than her former husband, with an extreme personality that matches her Pentecostal devotion, but both of which she’s capable of interrogating and subverting to the strength of her own ethics. Notably, she was just about the only Christian public figure to express empathy towards victims of the AIDS crisis, which combined with her support for the queer community in general and her eccentric sense of style made her something of an icon to the LGBT movement to the dismay of every other televangelist.
This is part of the story that director Michael Showalter tells, though only a small part in the larger narrative of Tammy Faye’s life and marriage. And yet it’s the key legacy Showalter would leave you with in that it severs her quite distinctly from the world in which she was otherwise attached to, and remained in long after the business with Jim was over. But there was more to Tammy Faye than that advocacy, and even this film has to address the bewildering life she led up to that point.
Tammy Faye is played by Jessica Chastain, a very good actress who looks almost nothing like the real-world preacher she is cast as. But with the aid of facial prosthetics and the heavy make-up the real Tammy Faye was known for, she comes closer to approximating the likeness, though in not all that naturally convincing a way. In one of the most ironic opening scenes of any movie, Tammy is introduced in close-up removing bits of her make-up to an off-camera request. It’s a moment intended to spotlight the marvel in Chastain’s physical transformation, but what it instead does is lampshade the flaws. The make-up is applied in a way that distorts her complexion, makes it look plastic in some scenes; and both Chastain and Andrew Garfield playing Jim are fitted with false cheeks that are distractingly uncanny -even moreso as the characters age. Because none of the other cast members, most notably Vincent D’Onofrio as Jerry Falwell, are given similar treatments (perhaps because these parts were cast with actors who actually looked like their characters) it’s all the more stark how unreal the Bakkers appear -dolls in a world of real people.
In spite of this, Chastain gives a good and very dedicated performance, although the shortcomings in her aspect are a constant reminder that she is miscast. Matt Zoller Seitz tweeted an observation a while back that Kathy Bates would never be cast in Misery if it were made today -instead a higher profile, more conventionally glamourous actress would take on the role. That seems to be the case with Chastain in this movie. She plays Tammy Faye well, but I have no doubt a lesser-known actress who might better physically fit the part could deliver just as much. Chastain does carry the movie though -little else there is all that noteworthy. Cherry Jones gets some good moments as Tammy’s crusty Minnesotan mother, but Garfield struggles a lot at relating any conviction in Jim Bakker, who exists apart from his self-righteousness to mostly be a gaslighting and silently abusive force in Tammy’s life. There’s humour to their relationship, in how extremely ill-thought out and sexually repressive it is (its’ suggested they rushed into the marriage just so they could have sex), but it can also be kind of nauseating how phony it all is -especially for those who know these kind of fundamentalist couples. Garfield and Chastain, perhaps by design, have minimal chemistry.
Still, the subject matter is curious, and Showalter does a good job showing how insular the world of these Christians is, how stringently patriarchal they are, and how ardently political they must be -all of which are characterized as discomforting to Tammy, who has probably read more of the Bible than any of them. The conflict between her personality and less hard-line beliefs and the televangelist institution she is embedded in is the compelling facet of the movie, highly dramatized in her favour though it almost certainly is. And still as far as a biopic goes, much like the Bakkers’ Christian media, it is very watered down. Tammy has the mildest of affairs with a record producer, catches her husband in extremely tame homosexual behaviour -that it doesn’t illicit much drama. What is more effective is the frustration in the power dynamic of their relationship, the extreme social and sexual repression that comes with it, and just the general atmosphere of charlatanism that pervades every aspect of their lives.
None of this is at all illustrated creatively. I loved The Big Sick, but Showalter is not a particularly inspired director. And the script by Abe Sylvia is pretty insubstantial too. In addition to Chastain, it’s clear the movie is banking on merely a general discontent with televangelism to provoke audiences, but it’s not enough. Even the downfall of Jim fails to be as cathartic as it should be, as much as it’s one of Showalters’ better constructed sequences. Because the film stays so much with Tammy and her point-of-view, the audience isn’t privy to dramatic details of the legal battles and debt issues Jim accrues but keeps from her; so his ultimate arrest for fraud and conspiracy comes without much weight (the film also glosses over the sexual assault allegations) -in all of this Jim comes off as simply naive and careless , which I can’t imagine is terribly honest. Otherwise, the use of Chastain and Garfields’ portraits pasted over news photos and into existing footage, as well as the 70s TV grain applied to the Bakkers’ various programs, is about the biggest visual choice that The Eyes of Tammy Faye makes. And we never even get to see Heritage U.S.A, arguably the single greatest symbol of the Bakkers’ ambitions and efforts to Christian-ize American culture.
Perhaps the key scene of the piece is the recreation of one of the more famous moments of Tammy Faye’s career: when she interviewed a gay pastor diagnosed with AIDs (here played by Randy Havens -Mr. Clarke from Stranger Things!). It sticks close to the source and feels very much like Showalter realizing in the moment where the films’ focus should have been directed. Instead it’s just a chapter in a life story that is not permitted to be very compelling; a mediocre movie preaching to the choir about the harms and hypocrisy of the prosperity gospel -but with Jessica Chastain flimsily incognito.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JordanBosch
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch/
Comments
Post a Comment