By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Ben Falcone
Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Molly Gordon, Gillian Jacobs, Maya Rudolph, Adria Arjona, Jessie Ennis, Debby Ryan, Matt Walsh, Julie Bowen, Jacki Weaver, Stephen Root, Luke Benward, Yani Smone, Shannon Purser, Chris Parnell, Jimmy O. Yang, Ben Falcone and Christina Aguilera.
Rating: Average.
Ben Falcone joins forces with actress/wife Melissa McCarthy for the third time in “Life of the Party” which had very funny moments.
The movie centers in Deanna Miles (Melissa McCarthy) a mother who after she drops off her daughter Maddie (Molly Gordon) to college she receives an unexpected surprise by her husband Dan (Matt Walsh) who abruptly asks her for a divorce since he has been having an affair with another woman.
Now an alone Deanna while she is trying to get rid of the things that had any relation with her husband she decides that she will return to college and get her degree.
Her daughter at the beginning is not comfortable with the idea but she ends up accepting the idea by welcoming her mom to her sorority.
Noe Deanne will be the sensation of the school and will cherish the most important things in life that she didn´t had while she was married.
“Life of the Party” is a comedy with good elements and it´s a concept that we have seen before but still the movie does work.
The only thing that I have to say is that Melissa McCarthy by moments she got me in my nerves and like I mentioned in my review of “I Feel Pretty” in regards of Amy Schumer, McCarthy is also very funny and talented but in the last two movies she has being annoying.
Ben Falcone´s directing was better in this film and I feel that he and McCarthy wrote a better screenplay but still there were moments in the film that were not necessary since we already understand what is going on.
Maya Rudolph is funny here by moments but again she was annoying in most of the film. Maybe that was direction that Falcone wanted to go but sometimes I do consider it too much and for comedies you also need to be authentic and by moments “Life of the Party” lacked of that.
I liked how Ben Falcone took us to the college world and made us have a feeling of growns up how were our a college day when we were students.
I feel that Falcone has learned from his mistakes from his previous films on “Tammy” and “The Boss” where in terms of story both films were sloppy. Still with “Life of the Party” there were those moments but at least the characters were more rich and his timing for comedy improved in this film.
“Life of the Party” has very funny moments and despite of the flaws that I previously mentioned here I did enjoy the movie.
If you want to have a good time this is the movie to see if you are expecting a comedy that has good writing not so much since it lacked of it by moments. Still I give the film a recommendation.