As she and her husband drop off their daughter for her last year of college, middle-aged mom Deanna, (Melissa McCarthy) learns that he husband wants a divorce. Turning her rejection into a new beginning, Deanna enrols in college to complete her long neglected degree. College life is different than Deanna remembers but her outgoing, upbeat personality begins to rub off on fellow students.
We say, “Life of the Party is pleasant and harmless.”
TAYLOR: I’m not really a fan of McCarthy’s work, but I do think she’s a capable enough actor. Most of her films have her portray characters that are either obnoxious loud-mouths or oddballs. In Tammy for instance, McCarthy’s Tammy character was a likeable goofball and although the film was neither particularly funny nor great, it wasn’t annoying. McCarthy’s Deanna character, in Life of the Party is a sweet, optimistic supermom thrust into atypical college life.
HOWE: Life of the Party is not funny, well I take that back, there is one funny moment in it, but when you are paying good money to watch a comedy you expect more for your buck. I find nearly all of McCarthy’s movies are the same: weak scripts, weak acting and even unfunny jokes. I can’t believe she still gets leading roles in films.
TAYLOR: I think I know the joke you laughed at, it’s the same one I laughed at and a nice surprise about half way through the film. Although I couldn’t recommend Life of the Party as a good and funny comedy, I still can’t stop coming back to the fact that it didn’t bother me. It’s like a tall glass of tepid tap water on a hot day: you’ll drink it but you’ll be sorry if you had to pay for it.
HOWE: I will have to agree with you on all of the points you mentioned. Still, I was so bored and fed up with it that I was looking at the time to see how much more of this awful film I had to sit through. I could have spent it a lot more creatively like watering the garden, mowing the grass or cleaning out the cat litter.
Taylor gives Life of the Party 2 trips to the library out of 5.
Howe gives it 1 good joke out of 5.
