TheEyesOfTammyFaye review: Michael Showalter's film brings us close to the Bakkers' story, but it's really about how Christianity got turned into showbiz
, who almost always makes comedies , so you might expect him to treat the Bakker saga as a delicious slice of kitsch — which, in a sense, it was.
The film kicks into gear in 1960, when Jim and Tammy Faye meet at a Minneapolis bible college where Jim is already the breakout showman. With his slick pompadour and easy grin, he looks like an early rock ‘n’ roller . He’s just 20 but knows his scripture, and when he’s onstage during a student preacher seminar, looking down at the pews with a couple of dozen other students in them, he wants to be more than just another dull conduit for God. Jim wants to grab people, to make them listen.
The two become roving evangelists with no money but a fancy car. But as they’re coming out of a motel in Virginia, fate brings them into contact with the Christian Broadcasting Network, a fledging local operation run by Pat Robertson , who hires them to do a children’s show, sort of like “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” with bible stories. At CBN, Jim becomes one of the hosts of “The 700 Club,” the station’s flagship nighttime talk show.
Why watch “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” instead of the original documentary, which is superb? Because this version, in heightening our connection to the characters, sheds new light on who they were and why they did what they did. It’s Tammy Faye who comes to occupy the spiritual center of the movie, and Chastain, tapping a bombs-away flamboyance she has never before approached, makes her a mesmerizing diva-victim who keeps evolving.
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