Melissa McCarthy is such a talented comic that she just can’t help getting laughs whatever the showcase. And so it proves in this moderate comedy, which she co-wrote and co-produced with her husband Ben Falcone, who also directs.
It sometimes looks as if she is improv-ing her way through it, achieving a hit rate of one line in four. She plays Michelle Darnell, a ferociously wealthy, obnoxious entrepreneur and inspirational business speaker who goes to prison for insider trading, loses all her money and on getting out of jail, winds up having to crash at the humble apartment of her former PA Claire (Kristen Bell), a single mom whom she abused mightily while in her pomp.
Peter Dinklage plays her hated business rival and former lover, and there’s some fun in the flashbacks to their coke-fuelled affair in the 90s. It’s quite funny, though not exactly original, and as with Amy Schumer, you can see how McCarthy gets de-fanged by the imperatives of mainstream Hollywood comedy, with its need for sentimental resolutions.
