Leave it to Jessica Chastain to make me wanna care, if only a little, about Tammy Faye Bakker.
Indeed, the two-time Academy Award nominee is bringing life to The Eyes of Tammy Faye – and she is going for the win with a sure-to-be-hearty performance complete with the look, the sound, and the heft and face of the multi-hyphenate. Directed by The Big Sick’s Michael Showalter and scheduled to arrive in theaters on Sept. 17, this is an intimate look at the extraordinary rise, fall, and ultimate redemption of the titular televangelist, with fellow Oscar nominee Andrew Garfield as her entrepreneur-cum-convicted fraudster-husband, Jim Bakker.
It’s an American tale as old as time, the Bakkers’.
See, they started from the bottom to create the world’s largest religious broadcasting network (and theme park). They spread a message of love, acceptance, and prosperity, with Tammy Faye achieving legendary status on account of her indelible eyelashes, her idiosyncratic singing, and her eagerness to embrace people from all walks of life, much to the chagrin of Jim and the men in her circle.
And, of course, it could not and would not last.
You know it: The Bakker shop came tumbling down, when financial improprieties, scheming rivals (cough, cough, Jerry Falwell, cough…), and good ol’ scandal toppled the couple’s oh-so-carefully constructed empire.
And now we have the movie to tell the story.
Hooray?
King of Cups 