Review: 'Trainwreck'

[vc_row][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_column_text disable_pattern="true" align="left" margin_bottom="0"]It's been proven time and time again that yes, women are funny. And yes, women can carry a movie to both critical and financial glory. But a stand-up comedian making the leap from a Comedy Central show to the lead role in a Judd Apatow movie? That's uncharted territory, at least before Trainwreck. The aforementioned leaper is Amy Schumer, starring as a young journalist in New York City who's raised by her father (Colin Quinn, a genius in other mediums whose pause-talk-pause acting style couldn't be more out of place here) to fear monogamy. Instead of settling down with a nice, cuddly Mike Birbiglia type like her sister (Brie Larson) she instead pursues a series of unsuitable men in an effort to avoid love at any cost.

This includes John Cena, who shines as Amy's semi-boyfriend with massive glutes, homosexual tendencies, and dreams of becoming a CrossFit king. But when she's assigned to write a story about Dr. Aaron Conners (Bill Hader), a sports surgeon to the stars, she encounters a genuinely sweet guy who challenges her preconceived notions and also terrifies her to death.

If this sounds a bit like tried-and-true terrain, that's because it is; Schumer (who wrote the screenplay) and Apatow aren't trying to reinvent the wheel. What they have done is put together a romantic comedy that's crass when it's time for laughs and adorable when it needs to be; more importantly, it does depicts the fear of commitment in a unique sort of way, one that'll speak to a generation with similar concerns about the sustainability of long-term relationships. There's no attempt to quell those concerns besides "love makes it all better," of course, but hey, baby steps.

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