Life of the Party Commits Major Party Foul

Life of the Party was, in a word, terrible.

If I had one dime for every time I laughed, I would have zero dimes. Structurally it was a mess and the inconsistencies bogged down the narrative. Every conflict in the movie just seemed to sort itself out, without any real work or plot development. It just moves from one scene to the next, trying to pack in as many awful jokes in each scene as it can. The person I identified most in this movie was Melissa McCarthy's husband/ex-husband, played by the usually delightful Matt Walsh. His character was sadly unfunny, but I would have done worse than divorce the character that McCarthy was at the beginning of the movie. She was a clingy mother with a whiny demeanor even when she wasn't whining. She ended up growing into a trashy college girl and finally an adult in the last ten minutes, but her start was painful. With no likability, McCarthy was handcuffed for the entire movie, and every time she started to come around as a real protagonist, she would do something terrible. I felt so badly for her daughter in the film because she was forced to deal with her middle age mother's growing pains during her senior year at college. The premise was much better served in Back to School, starring Rodney Dangerfield. That actually had jokes that landed and a perfect Triple Lindy.

While I did hate pretty much everything about Life of the Party, I did enjoy one character. Heidi Gardner played Melissa McCarthy's roommate, because she lived at school (for the gags). Gardner is a standout on SNL for her under-appreciated characters like the teen movie blogger and the boxer's wife on Weekend Update, she was great in her small role in Life of the Party.

Because of Gardner's performance, I give Life of the Party $1 out of the $28000 that tuition cost at the fake school that was only 22 minutes from McCarthy's family house. Seriously. If my kid went to college 15 miles away, I would not be paying for them to live on campus. Just pissing money away. Ridiculous.

You may enjoy this movie, but I have yet to enjoy any McCarthy movie except Spy, and mostly because of Jason Statham's stellar work. If you like Melissa McCarthy, then you probably won't like this movie, but you'll like it more than me.