The Eyes of Tammy Faye

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) movie review

Released last September, The Eyes of Tammy Faye follows the true rise and fall of televangelists Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker. Jessica Chastain, who also produced the film, stars as the titular Tammy Faye, a role which just led to her Oscar win this past weekend. The story itself is actually based on a documentary of the same name from 2000.

So I picked Tammy Faye for today’s review for a few reasons: I’m still recovering from being sick, so I don’t feel like pouring too much time and energy into a bigger film; the Oscars were last weekend and this film did take home two Oscars; and I can’t think of a third reason! On with the review!

To put it plainly, I found The Eyes of Tammy Faye to be a bit dull and unfocused. Apparently Chastain has been wanting to make this story for a while now, and I have no doubt that the intention that went into this was earnest, making the mistakes very honest. Regardless, it had me questioning if the intention itself was a major problem in this drama.

The film attempts to get to know Tammy and Jim on an intimate level, but while the talent goes a long way towards making these two somewhat relatable, this is something that consistently fell short. While the story does go a long way to show that both not only have a genuine passion for evangelism, but Tammy especially is someone who simply wants to love people. However, in part because of the attempt to stay accurate and in part because of the rocky pacing, that was really all I felt like I knew about these characters after a two hour film. I wanted to know why Tammy wears so many layers of makeup of when Jim began to change as a character, and the film simply settled for a shallow blend of facts and character drama.

Another major issue I had was with Jim himself. Basically, and I’ll be vague for those who haven’t seen the film and don’t know the true story, Jim does a very awful thing on top of some other legally awful things. And for the life of me I don’t know why this film felt the need to sugar coat especially one despicable act. (Okay some mild spoilers coming!) So Jim does go to jail yes, but as a character, I didn’t feel like he had to much reprimand in the eyes of the audience. The man rapped someone in real life and that would have made for a difficult but necessary subject to tackle head-on. Instead it’s kinda skirted around- and I thought that was pretty sad.

Now the highlight of the film are the performances, as expected. Andrew Garfield plays Jim Bakker in another film where all of the interview questions were undoubtedly about Spider-Man. He’s very good actually! Despite never feeling old enough (even with the impressive makeup), he does manage to carry the character to a more complex degree than the story gave us. There’s a great supporting performance from Vincent D’Onofrio as Jerry Falwell which rings to such an ironic degree now… And of course there’s Oscar winner Jessica Chastain, who really does put in the work! To her credit, I was constantly reminding myself that it was Chastain. I still don’t think this was the best performance of the nominees, but she does disappear in this role! She brings such a genuine layer of depth to this character that is almost make up for the sloppy pacing throughout the film.

It also ends on a perfect note, which thanks to the strong performance does leave the film feel almost worth watching. Alas, I am not too sure it is. While the performances are great and the Oscar winning makeup is pretty impressive, the story itself feels a bit empty. The pacing is very uneven, the characters never feel as complex as they should, and the film itself really fails to make a point on anything. It wasn’t a bad film, but not one I felt was worth watching. 5/10.

So The Eyes of Tammy Faye? Did you see it? What did you think? Be sure to leave a like or a comment below and let us know! And if there’s any more Oscar pics you want us to talk about, let us know! Thanks for reading!

-review by Ryan Prince