TICK, TICK...BOOM! and THE EYES OF TAMY FAYE

  
I put tick, tick...BOOM! and The Eyes of Tammy Faye together because the male lead in both is Andrew Garfield, the British actor who has become Hollywood's latest attempt to find a new Tom Hanks, a versatile actor who can play non-glamorous characters and still carry a movie. For me Hanks almost always pulls it off because despite looks that the movie biz usually relegates to "character actor" status, Hanks usually still has as much or more screen charisma as any star.

Despite his obvious commitment and talent, for me Garfield doesn't. What saves him in these two flicks, both flawed but watchable, is the other actors in each cast. Jessica Chaistain as Tammy Faye gives the kind of performance that wins Oscars. Her physical transformation alone will garner academy votes, but her acting goes way beyond the extraordinary embodiment of Tammy's conflicted character to stunningly precise evocations of multiple emotions at once through only her eyes! (I still will vote for Jennifer Hudson for the SAG Awards, but am guessing Chastain will win.)

Both movies contain music without exactly being musicals, but if you're a fan of musicals, which I am and have always been, then you'll probably like tick, tick...BOOM! It's setting is a musical try-out about a failed-to-be-realized on stage other musical leading up to the redemption of another musical that will be the great Broadway success RENT. Garfield gives his all and it's a lot. but again, for me, it lacked the kind of magnetism that makes me stop and watch many movie stars even in bad movies when I'm channel surfing (still).

But there are so many wonderful "supporting actors" in both flicks, even in the smallest almost cameo roles (shout out to the initially unrecognizable playwright Jonathan Marc Sherman, who I knew when he was starting out) (e.g. Bradley Whitford capturing Stephen Sondheim's physical tics), The women in both films in particular, for me, were all terrific and many revelatory, especially those who sang in tick, tick...BOOM! Let me know what you think.