The Eyes of Tammy Faye
There’s a lot to process in Michael Showalter’s biopic about the tumultuous life of Tammy Faye Bakker, especially with her marriage to televangelist Jim Bakker. I’m not as familiar with the true story to necessarily critique its portrayal of the two, though I know, from people who are, that this is probably more generous towards Tammy Faye than it should be. Ultimately, what’s most problematic about the film has to do with its choices in how it tells whatever story it wants to tell, whether it’s acting or staging or tone or presentation; maybe this should have been left as a story for the documentary medium to tell.
That this story is told from the perspective of Tammy Faye rather than Jim makes sense; just the fact that Jim certainly seems like the most devious of the two- even before his imprisonment for malfeasance resulting from the PTL Network and their ministries- makes turning him into the protagonist into a tricky proposition. Though the film seems to whitewash over her own culpability in the scandals with Jim, she was also out of sync with the evangelical community at the time in her embrace of LGBTQ+ individuals, which also makes her more layered an individual than Jim. There’s a lot for an actress like Jessica Chastain to chew on in this role.
The film begins when Tammy Faye is a child. She wants to attend church with her mother and stepfather, but her mother (Cherry Jones) forbids it, because the church already looks down on her for her divorce, and she does not want to risk the goodwill she has earned. Tammy Faye wants to be one with God, though, and she takes the plunge. We next see her as a student at North Central Bible College in Minneapolis. It’s there where she (now played by Chastain) meets Jim (Andrew Garfield), and the two immediately seem on the same wavelength with one another. Not long after, they are married, and they begin to travel as tent evangelists for Christ- he preaching the gospel, her luring the children in with a puppet show. Eventually, they find their way onto Pat Robertson’s CBN network, and their rise to the heights of televangelism begins.
At the center of many of “The Eyes of Tammy Faye’s” issues is the screenplay by Abe Sylvia. As brought to the screen by Showalter (“The Big Sick”), we are not sure whether we’re supposed to focus on the domestic drama between Jim and Tammy Faye, and how their lifestyle impacted their marriage; the con, and moral dubiousness, of televangelism; whether Tammy Faye is supposed to be a squeaky-clean victim of Jim’s or if she’s just as culpable of the scam as he is. What is clear is that their marriage feels like a tumultuous one, and this film feels like both a melodrama and comedy without committing to either one, or being unable to juggle both. It’s appropriate that I happened to see a trailer for Pedro Almodovar’s new film with my screening of “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”- the Spanish wildman has the precise storytelling strength, and ability to balance drama and comedy into satire, to make this film work. Showalter doesn’t have that strength here.
Jessica Chastain is practically unrecognizable under the film’s fantastic makeup effects for Tammy Faye. Sometimes, that’s a very good thing, and it captures the character well; others, it feels like broad parody, especially the older the character gets. As a performance, though, Chastain delivers the whole way through, although her Minnesota accent veers too far into “Fargo” parody, at times. Unfortunately, Garfield is not as successful as Jim Bakker. When Jim is younger, Garfield is quite good, and we see how he is seduced into the lifestyle of televangelism and so wants to be accepted into the clique of Robertson and Jim Fallwell (Vincent D’Onofrio) so badly. As the character ages, unfortunately, Garfield cannot pull off the weight of the character, and it feels like over-the-top silliness as Jim gets further and further disgraced. Both performances suffer from the film’s inability to nail down a tone, which makes even their best moments feel false.
(Completely separate from his work here, this is now the third time Andrew Garfield has played an individual fully defined by their faith after “Hacksaw Ridge” and “Silence.” Maybe instead of asking him if he’s going to be in “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” someone could ask him his thoughts on religion and faith, because I’d be fascinated to hear what he has to say.)
In working through my feelings on “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” I thought about the frequent criticism I’ve seen about films like “GoodFellas” and “The Wolf of Wall Street,” which present morally bankrupt characters as charismatic protagonists of their own films. By doing so, is Martin Scorsese “endorsing” their behavior? I would argue no, but I know several who think so. The behavior in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” is almost even more morally bankrupt, as it preys on people’s sense of faith. I don’t think the film is endorsing the Bakker’s behavior, but I’m not sure it’s as much a condemnation of it as it wants to be.
