The Boss is an entertaining film, but only because it’s Melissa McCarthy.
There’s a difference between actors playing roles that were made for them, versus actors filling in the mold of a character. Melissa McCarthy is great at what she does because she is a chameleon—she can play a disgruntled burger joint waitress in Tammy and the desk jockey underdog in Spy and portrays them without overlaps in characters.
In her newest film, The Boss, McCarthy plays Michelle Darnell, a sociopathic and often overly-assertive business mogul. Written by McCarthy, Ben Falcone, and Steven Mallory, the movie opens with a glimpse into her life—Michelle fills stadiums with energetic, hard-working women eager to devour her business tactics and lives a life of luxury. Michelle is a mean, entitled, no-bullshit woman, and the writers did a good job of bringing out this personality in her dress: turtlenecks, big, bright red hair, and gaudy jewelry and furs.
Michelle loses her fortune when her ex-lover and rival Renault (played by Peter Dinklage) narcs on her for insider trading, and she watches her home get foreclosed and all her possessions seized. When she comes out of prison, she ends up staying with her former assistant Claire (played by Kristen Bell), who is a single mom, and her daughter (Ella Anderson) in an already cramped apartment. After weeks of loafing around and doing nothing, Michelle finally snaps back into her business-mogul mindset, plans to sell Claire’s brownies at a larger scale and starts a for-profit equivalent of Girls Scouts troops.
Of course, as Michelle spends more time with Claire and Rachel, she grows a soft spot for them in that tiny heart of hers. From the beginning, the direction of the movie was already clear—Michelle was going to ride out the height of her career, fall hard and learn how to feel compassion for people other than herself. And while it’s nice to see amends made at the end of the movie, Michelle loses a lot of her spark and energy when she reveals her human side hidden under that mean, snobbish exterior. In short, Michelle wasn’t as fun as a character, because she wasn’t entertaining the audience with her sharp, witty retorts.
Melissa McCarthy did a great job of playing Michelle Darnell, of course, because she herself is a funny woman with a sharp, quick-witted tongue. The Boss boasts a talented, A-list cast, but unfortunately the supporting characters are stale and uninteresting. For instance, Kathy Bates plays Ida Marquett. After seeing her in The Office as Jo Bennett, I was excited to see how Bates would play this character, but was met with some disappointment. Bates’ character was only featured in one scene, and it didn’t show her personality whatsoever.
Melissa McCarthy took a fairly boring and predictable story and made it funny and entertaining without feeling juvenile. Michelle easily outshines the other characters, and it’s safe to say that McCarthy carried the movie. Full of sophisticated adult humor, juvenile hijinks and crass jokes about blowjobs, The Boss will most certainly make you laugh, but there will be transitions where you might lose interest.
The Boss comes out on April 8th.
Photo from The Boss’ official website.
