Movie Review: The Eyes of Tammy Faye Sparkle With Star Power
Do women know? From Ted Bundy to Bernie Madoff, there are so many countless cases of men with wives who had no idea about their “other lives” and how they entailed, secretly, killing or stealing from the world. Even Harvey Weinstein, was able to have a family and be hailed as “God” amongst producers, while building a corrupt system of rape. Yeah….The Eyes of Tammy Faye is a fascinating biopic because it takes a “larger than life” woman that married a man who thought he was Life, or rather God, incarnate. Thus, the question is….. what is her accountability in marrying a “false god” while, herself, wishing to be one?
Jessica Chastain plays Tammy Faye’s gaudiness with an inherent sweetness, innocence, and depression. She is the biggest personality to weep and be wormed across scandals that, at best, she could see from the surface because the root was her own husband: Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield). Frankly, it is easy to be enraptured by Jessica’s perfect performance. She embodies the tenderness, strength, slight conniving, and shame of a woman that got swept by her man’s schemes, while never approaching how deeply she was involved or wished to be. Immediately, you feel her performative personality, and grow compassion for her as she takes some spotlight for herself, but gets constantly crushed her husband and Falwell (another power hungry evangelical played by Vincent D’Onofrio). Yet, Garfield is delicious as a man whose own penchant for greed and eyes salivating for power lead him to go from one big sin to a bigger one.
In essence, Garfield’s Bakker is a prime example that if you let the Devil in, just a little bit, suddenly he is that brother who told you he was only moving in for a week or, at least, till he found a job, but now has used your basement as his apartment for the past 5 years….no job in sight. When we meet Jim and Tammy, they are both Bible College graduates who love Jesus and want to do their best to make sure you do, too. Yet, the dangers of religion is it can attract more people that want to be God than with him. Both Bakker and Faye love a good lime light, and the movie finds its hilarity in their outlandish desperation to be more seen by an audience than watched over by God. Still, I could not help but watch their fall from grace, and see it as a cautionary tale to watch our own inner darkness.
Directed by Michael Showalter and written by Abe Sylvia, part of the magnetism of this film is that beneath Tammy Faye’s ridiculousness is a relatable heart: for better or worse. We all want to be seen, and part of why we get scammed or become the scammer is because we fear staying invisible. The Bakkers ultimate nightmare was living a life empty of onlooking eyes. Even their descent from fame hurts them more than the eventual loss of money because, in this world,
attention means love, and nobody has to work less for attention, or rather love, than Jesus.
Whether you believe in him or not, we all know the cross, and, in that Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker found their visibility, and were able to con people in need of love, prosperity, and to seen but saying He did. Thus, as you watch Tammy get “whirlwinded” by the choices of life, men (including Jesus), and her own ambitions, you understand that the lies we tell ourselves and others hit like truths because we need love. Hence, The Eyes of Tammy Faye is about how lack of self-love gets you conned.
