The Eyes of Tammy Faye: Movie Review

Cast: Jessica Chastain, Andrew Garfield
Director: Michael Showalter

The Eyes of Tammy Faye is a film that hinges solely on the performances of its two leads, with each complementing the other in ways that help them excel on the screen.

Which is fortunate, because as a drama and biography, The Eyes of Tammy Faye clearly really doesn't know what it wants to be.

Charting the journey of Tammy Faye Bakker as she negotiated her way into the world of televangelism in the 1970s, Jessica Chastain is excellent as the infinitely perky, potentially naive and believing-the-best-of-people Tammy Faye.  It's possibly helped by a script that really does champion her point of view, and does little else to delve deeper into the potential complexities of the crimes the Bakkers were committing, stealing from their evangelical foundation for their own use. 

The Eyes of Tammy Faye implies that Jim Bakker (a fierce Andrew Garfield, in one of his career best) was the manipulator behind the scenes, and that prosthetically-plastered Tammy Faye was merely swept along by the charismatic nature of the man who would found the phenomenally popular The 700 Club. 

Heralded as the Ken and Barbie of the televangelical world, and with Tammy Faye espousing such sentiments as "We're all just people, made out of the same old dirt, And God didn't make any junk", Chastain finds the bubbly nature of the charismatic and inclusive Tammy Faye and exploits it for every second on the screen. 

There are hints of tragedy behind the eyes, but the script never really seems content to try and mine any of that for any potential drama there may need to be, preferring to use time jumps just as dramatic moments rear their head.

Showalter seems content to guide matters on in a fairly workmanlike way, but the jumping around of the narrative doesn't really help, and leaves the audience feeling like they've had as much of a historical sleight-of-hand thrust upon them as the Bakkers seemingly did on their congregation.

Ultimately, The Eyes of Tammy Faye is a biopic that's light on detail, high on lurid costuming and looks, and frustratingly episodic in its execution. It's only the dazzling turn of Jessica Chastain that makes it worth watching - through any kind of eyes.