The Eyes of Tammy Faye

 3/4

Starring: Jessica Chastain, Andrew Garfield, Cherry Jones, Vincent D'Onofrio, Mark Wystrach

Rated PG-13 for Sexual Content and Drug Abuse

What you see is what you get.

Maybe that was Tammy Faye's appeal.  As over-the-top and garish as she looked, she owned it.  No one could bring her down.  No matter the odds, she remained indomitably herself.  At least on the outside (she wore waterproof makeup to hide her pain), but as the film by Michael Showalter shows us, she was just as human as the rest of us.  Then again, she had a number of other quirks that made her so endearing: her singing, her bubbly personality, her childish giggle, her utter lack of guile.  Come to think of it, there were plenty of reasons to love Tammy Faye.

The film begins when Tammy Faye (played as a child by Chandler Head), who fell in love with Christianity and music at more or less the same time.  From the moment she got saved, she lived her life for Christ.  That led her North Central Bible College where she (Chastain) met and fell in love with fellow student Jim Bakker (Garfield).  They quickly marry and decide to live their lives as traveling evangelists.  With his charisma, her singing, and a talent for showmanship, they find themselves on TV and in the stratosphere of the pioneers of televangelism such as Pat Robertson (Gabriel Olds) and Jerry Falwell (D'Onofrio).  They rocket to stardom, eventually reaching 30 million viewers a day.  But with every rise there is certain to be a fall.  Cracks in their squeaky clean facade begin to emerge.  Jim falls in with the men and their political ambitions.  Tammy, who simply wants to reach people, feels lonely and neglected. She eventually finds comfort in a new convert, rocker Gary Paxton (Wystrach).  And Jim's ambitions exceed the money he is able to raise.

This was a passion project for Jessica Chastain, who identified with the woman dubbed "the ultimate drag queen" and felt a calling to portray her on film.  The elegant redhead has always been gifted, and this shows why she may be one of the most underrated actresses working today.  From a ruthless lobbyist ("Miss Sloane," the 2016 political thriller that no one saw) to a Stephen King scream queen ("IT: Chapter Two"), Chastain always impresses with not only her range and versatility, but also the daring choices of films in which she appears.  Who else would appear in a Terrence Malick film and an MCU flick?  I'm sure there are others who have done the same, but never mind...

Her match is played by Andrew Garfield, who is a strange choice for an evangelist.  The English actor specializes in playing soft-spoken characters (his breakout performance in "Boy A") and nerds ("The Social Network"), so it would seem to be an ill-fit for him to play a Christian evangelist.  But Garfield pulls it off for the most part.  There is one scene where he gets into a brutal argument with Chastain that he can't quite pull off.  Special mention has to go to Vincent D'Onofrio, who has had an uneven career to say the least.  His Jerry Falwell is a monster; a treacherous hypocrite who uses people and the Bible in a quest for power.  Whether or not this is how Falwell actually behaved is irrelevant; D'Onofrio is so chilling that even seeing him on screen generates dread.

The film is episodic and doesn't always keep track of all of its diverse plot lines.  When Jim and Tammy achieve more and more success, the film skips over how that was achieved.  Similarly, Tammy Faye's addiction to pills is treated in a perfunctory way.  It's raised and then never dealt with again after it is "solved."

One thing that is worth noting is the film's treatment of religion.  Particularly these days, portraying religion of any kind on film is dangerous territory.  Witness the controversy over "Creation" or some of the  more political Christian films that have been released in recent years.  While it's obvious that Showalter has nothing but disdain for Falwell and his brand of Christianity, he shows this by contrasting his use and abuse of religion versus Tammy's embrace of its message.  Falwell, Robertson and use the Bible for their own gain by pitting people against each other while Tammy believes its message to embrace everyone.  Falwell, perhaps correctly, sees Tammy as a threat to him, and it influences his actions towards the Bakkers.

Flaws aside, "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" is compelling viewing.  It's no masterpiece, but as far as biopics go, it's a solid effort with a dynamo lead performance.

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