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A she-wolf of Wall Street with a spiky ginger Suze Orman shag, Michelle Darnell, the anti-heroine of fitfully funny The Boss, is the latest of the Rabelaisian wonders played by Melissa McCarthy. The actress specializes in characters with indestructible bravado, no matter where they stand on the socioeconomic ladder; Michelle, the “47th-wealthiest woman in the world,” joins the swaggering sorority formed by Megan in Bridesmaids, Mullins in The Heat and even Tammy in, uh, Tammy. That last film, a muddle of half-thought-out ideas, was ineptly directed by Ben Falcone, McCarthy’s husband. That the spouses re-teamed for The Boss made me worry that go-it-alone Michelle’s definition of family — “an anchor that will make you sink” — would prove all too accurate. The Boss is a better film, but it still founders, almost capsizing in its sloppy final third.
Yet The Boss’s opening moments showcase McCarthy’s brilliance at basking in excess. (And wearing it: Outfitted in turtlenecks that stretch to the chin and bows the size of spinnakers, Michelle is a paragon of tailored too-much-ness.)
After a prologue shows the future magnate being repeatedly returned to a Catholic orphanage by cowed foster families, rejections that forge her steely resolve, the adult tycoon makes her entrance to an arena packed with frenzied acolytes on the back of an ablaze phoenix (“my totem animal”). In her seminar — part TED Talk, part Ozzfest, part Hot 97 Summer Jam — Michelle lets the screaming hordes know that no indulgence is out of her price range: “I had Destiny’s Child reunite and come to my personal living room just so I could watch them break up again.”
That’s just one of many hilarious scenarios we are left to imagine, and McCarthy’s delivery and timing are, as ever, flawless. “My tongue has always been my sword,” Michelle boasts, words that also apply to the woman who plays her. McCarthy created the mogul roughly fifteen years ago while a member of Los Angeles improv troupe the Groundlings. (Steve Mallory, a fellow former Groundling, also has a screenplay credit.) McCarthy’s long history with the character most likely accounts for the fact that The Boss, at least initially, has a tighter plot than Tammy and is less reliant on dumb throwaway gags.
But The Boss gives its star few, if any, hitting partners. It’s a baffling decision, considering that McCarthy is not only a terrific ensemble performer, but also a generous lead when working with a scene-stealing supporting cast. Her cast-mates this time out include Kristen Bell, playing Claire, the onetime assistant Michelle turns to after serving a four-month jail sentence for insider trading. The disgraced one-percenter moves in to the Chicago walk-up where her ex-employee is raising her tween daughter, Rachel (Ella Anderson). Claire proves a dull foil: She may upbraid her former overseer, but her chastisement is always softened by Bell’s inveterate sunny blandness.
McCarthy must also share the screen with Peter Dinklage, an actor with no demonstrable gift for comedy, who plays Michelle’s vengeful ex-lover, Renault. Complications arising from the swain’s payback scheme, plus Michelle’s quest to be incorporated into the nuclear unit of Claire and her daughter, set off the disastrous last act, which includes a wearying caper to retrieve documents from Renault’s office, a plot thread featuring the a-charismatic Tyler Labine, and feeble dick-sucking jokes. Better are the lesbo jabs that Michelle makes during a meeting of Rachel’s scout group, the Dandelions — a gathering that provides McCarthy with two equals: the indignant matron played by Annie Mumolo and, in her screen debut, Eva Peterson as Chrystal, a terrifying classmate of Rachel’s who becomes Michelle’s top lieutenant in her Dandelion takeover.
The rapport between the veteran comic genius and the neophyte suggests that McCarthy may next want to buddy up not with a peer (like Sandra Bullock) or someone a generation older (say, Susan Sarandon), but with a kid at least thirty years her junior.
