The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) Review

Title: Eyes of Tammy Faye
Year: 2021
Director: Michael Showalter
Country: US
Language: English

On first impression, I feel like the majority of people who preach are completely full of themselves. I think that they must be doing this as some sort of scam on the gullible and/or vulnerable. This initial thought process is due to the many televangelists that plagued the television during my youth. The first ones I remember being Tammy Faye & Jim Bakker, who were found guilty of numerous accounts of fraud and conspiracy. This film looked like it was really going to be critical of that lifestyle, so I just had to watch it. 

This picture is intimate look at the extraordinary rise, fall and redemption of televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker (Jessica Chastain).

The Eyes of Tammy Faye is certainly critical of Jim Bakker & Tammy Faye in very justifiable ways, although I feel it doesn't go far enough in its criticism of evangelism as a whole. At times it also goes too far in painting the characters as buffoons, treating them more as sitcom characters than actual human beings. While we get the darker side of Jim Bakker, we don't get a full grasp of Faye's involvement in their scandal. What did she know? Surely she was not as clueless & naive as the film wants us to believe. 

 Ah, but I have seen interviews with Tammy Faye (including a Larry King one where she weighed 65lbs) and it is very hard to stay mad at her. She was so full of life; such a charismatic individual. She stood up for LGBT people during the AIDS crisis when nobody cared for them. Jessica Chastain plays Faye remarkably. Her performance was so great that Chastain received a 10 minute standing ovation at TIFF. I fully believe she will win the Best Actress Oscar for her magnificent role. 

Despite its flaws, Director Michael Showalter gives us a film that is full of style. We breeze through scene after scene of 80's glitz and glamour, which kept me very entertained despite my reservation about the script. The film has a typical biopic Walk the Line formula, but darn is it fun.