Spy (2015)

I sat down to watch Spy last night with only my own preconceptions for company. I knew a lot of misogynistic assholes hated its star, Melissa McCarthy, but then, by definition, misogynistic assholes hate everything with an unapologetic female front and centre - in this case, I wasn't convinced that the enemy of my enemy would be my friend. There aren't a lot of roles for larger women in Hollywood, and those that exist tend to be either for grossout comic relief or glorchy sentiment. My expectations weren't high, but it was a Friday night after a tough week and for once, even bad comedy seemed like a more enjoyable option than something more serious and/or cerebral.

Which, long story short, is how I found myself a new hero. I'de seen McCarthy before in Bridesmaids, and was only moderately impressed - sure, she played her part with gusto and a certain amount of flair, but in the end, she was still playing a caricature rather than a character. In Spy, however, she captures the essence of how it feels to be fat and middle-aged in today's society with a grace and deftness that lifted me from the depressive funk I've been in for the past couple of weeks. 

McCarthy plays Susan Cooper, a talented CIA analyst who provides information to Bond-style agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law, suitably slimy). When Fine is killed in the field by the vengeful daughter of a deceased arms dealer, Cooper, who's always nursed a crush, volunteers to go into the field to track her down and prevent the portable nuke she's carrying from getting into the wrong hands. It's not a complex plot, but then, it doesn't need to be, not in such a character-driven enterprise. 

Instead of unlikely twists, therefore, we're given unlikely supporting characters, a fair few of which go to appealing British comics like Peter Serafinowicz as well as singularly unappealing ones like Miranda Hart. These two both acquit themselves admirably, but the gold medal has to go to Jason Statham, of all people, playing a hypermasculine idiot (what else?) barely distinguishable from every other hypermasculine idiot he plays except for one key trait - his humiliating failure at everything he touches. Statham is preternaturally game, turning a character who could have been an irritant into somebody oddly endearing, and I found myself grinning every time his potato-shaped head popped up on screen.

The comedy itself is occasionally crude without being boringly broad. Crucially, however (at least from my personal point of view as a fat woman with delicate sensibilities), Cooper never bears the brunt. The laughs are never derived from her size. Instead, they frequently come from the attitudes of those around her, who only see their own prejudices when they remain convinced that she has, say, a cupcake addiction or a houseful of cats. It's a perfect demonstration of the type of selective invisibility women attain around a certain age and size, where people's assumptions are so entrenched that they refuse to see the person in front of them, and I found it incredibly empowering to see it addressed head-on for once.

Highly recommended.