Tammy's Always Dying has an intriguing premise. A mother-daughter scenario where the antics of the mother dominate the daughter to the point where she feels like her mother is ruining her life. The antics include threatening to jump from a bridge on a regular basis, lots of drinking especially at the end of the month, and a lot of dependence.
Felicity Huffman plays Tammy (the mother) and Anastasia Phillips plays Catherine (the daughter).
Doug (Clark Johnson) is this unbelievable family friend who watches over Tammy and Catherine in a seemingly innocent fashion. Doug's character reminds us of gay characters in years past whose sole purpose was to take care of everyone else without having a life. The mother and daughter struggle but would be so much worse off without Doug.
Doug and Catherine go away to the big city (Toronto) from where they live (Hamilton) on Sunday nights. They go to this swanky hotel bar and pretend to be extravagant characters in escape mode served by the bartender (Kristian Bruun). The bartender went to the same prince school as Doug.
Catherine is having a relationship with a married man (Aaron Ashmore), whose wife (Jessica Greco) confronts Catherine.
Tammy's suicide attempts get confronted with a cancer diagnosis.
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There is a subplot where Catherine is obsessed with this daytime talk show as a solution to her problems. Gordon Baker (Ali Hassan) is the host and Ilana Wiseman (Lauren Holly) is the primary producer. Hassan regularly substitutes for Tom Power on Q so he does have some talk show experience.
Huffman's over-the-top performance can be enough to watch this film, maybe. Joanne Sarazen's screenplay is a true poutine. The first half of the film sets up the relationships without much growth to the film. The talk show element had some potential but they speed through that part. Tammy is doing better before the talk show part and much worse afterward.
There is a strong feminist element — Amy Jo Johnson directed the film — but the mother-daughter story comes with princes among men who never do anything bad.
The Hamilton-Toronto contrast is the most interesting element in the film and that will be missed by most Americans seeing the film.
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Tammy's Always Dying is a way better film than Chien de Garde but has similar elements. Each has an over-the-top performance of someone who is messed up. The films are about people who are not desirable to put on screen.
There are countless good films about people who are struggling at life. Having uncomfortable characters can boost the interest in a film. The talk show segment needed to be incorporated into the rest of the film instead of a hot-air balloon that lands and quickly takes off again.
The ending of the film is infuriating and ambiguous. The performances are good even if most of the characters are unbelievable. The wife whose husband is cheating with Catherine is one of the most realistic characters on the screen and she isn't there for long. The actors deserved to be in a better film.
Tammy's Always Dying ran at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.
video credit: YouTube/Movieclips Indie
photo credit: Tammy's Always Dying film
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