TRAINWRECK

Starring: Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Brie Larson
Writer: Amy Schumer
Director: Judd Apatow

Trainwreck opens with young Amy being told by her father that monogamy isn't realistic. It's a view that grown-up Amy (Schumer) has taken to heart, enjoying numerous liaisons which generally last, well, not very long. However, when she's sent on an assignment to interview hotshot sports doctor Aaron (Hader), Amy is suddenly struck with the realisation that she may actually be falling in love. Which doesn't fit with her game plan at all...

Considering that this movie was touted as a game changer in the world of romcoms it turns out to be bafflingly conventional with very few surprises in its hefty running time of just over two hours. I know that Judd Apatow likes to allow his comedies space to breathe and I'm not saying this doesn't have its share of brilliantly funny moments but I think the opening half of this flick needs an edit or two. You know, cut out two or three minutes. Okay, five minutes. Make it ten. Possibly fifteen.

The surprises in Trainwreck all come courtesy of some inspired casting. Brie Larson is adorable as Amy's younger sister Kim, who's settled down with nice-but-kind-of-dull Tom (Mike Birbiglia) and Tom's son Allister (Evan Brinkmann, who absolutely nails it as the bookish, slightly odd kid). Vanessa Bayer, Randall Park and Dave Attell all get laughs as Amy's co-workers and Tilda Swinton is awesome as Amy's utterly dreadful boss Dianna who takes lack of concern for her employees to a new level. It was also several minutes before I realised it was Tilda Swinton. I'm going to put this down to Ms Swinton being a superb, chameleon-like performer and not down to me being an idiot and not recognising her. Oh, and watch out for the movie that Schumer and Cena are watching in the cinema (Hader is also watching the same movie later on), there are a couple of reasonably well-known faces in that too, sending up pretentious black and white arthouse flicks.

For me, however, the MVP of the supporting cast is John Cena. Yes, the wrestler John Cena. That John Cena. As Steven, Amy's most "serious" boyfriend (which to Amy obviously means "not serious at all") Cena is genuinely funny, playing the sensitive lunk to a T. And he's very game in terms of participating in an absolutely cringe-making love scene with Schumer which ends on a very definite exclamation point. By that I mean you kind of see Cena's exclamation point. Showing less but still getting in on the chuckles is basketball superstar Lebron James who, as a client/friend of Aaron's, shows amusing concern for the doctor's ongoing romantic entanglements whilst needing to know exactly what's going on in the latest episode of a certain British period drama phenomenon.

As for the leads, I might as well 'fess up and admit that I'm a big fan of Amy Schumer. I love her attitude to pretty much everything and to me she's hilarously funny so going to see this wasn't too much of a hardship. Schumer's on fine form here, showing how gifted a comedy performer she is and, you know what, she ain't too bad in the more dramatic moments too. Bill Hader turns in a sweet performance as a guy who's incredibly skilled as a doctor but not so skilled when it comes to relationships and as a couple I was quick to buy in to the Schumer/Hader pairing. Of course there are bumps in the road as Amy's fear of commitment comes to the fore and an argument causes a problem with Aaron's work, which  causes a problem with Amy's work, and so on and so on.

Of course, the game-changing element has to be the end of the movie, right? Surely it doesn't throw in the usual romcom "two characters, one location, all on the line" sequence, does it? Well, I have to tell you that it does, not that it's necessarily a bad thing but if you're expecting something from completely out of leftfield you're not going to get it. Okay, so Trainwreck isn't the reinvention of the modern romcom but I chuckled through most of the movie and laughed out loud a few times which adds up to a pretty good comedy in my book. See it, enjoy it, just don't go expecting something breathtakingly original.