My Thoughts on #TheEyesOfTammyFaye – Day 8 

I knew the story of Tammy Faye and Jim Baker before watching this. I’d seen a couple of documentaries including a 20/20 special. I saw the preview for this and I was immediately interested in watching. It is the story of televangelist, Tammy Faye Bakker and her ex-husband, Jim Bakker. It shows their rise to fame in the evangelical world and their fall to disgrace when their world is rocked by scandals.

I like biopics and this wasn’t an exception. I enjoyed seeing the different moments and looking them up while trying to figure out what is fact and what is exaggerated. It basically was like watching a more relaxed documentary.

The most fascinating thing about this movie was Jessica Chastain’s performance as Tammy Faye. Chastain is clinical and will always deliver but the combination of her skills and the make up transformation was captivating. At some point, I wondered if her accent was veering into caricature but if you look up videos of Tammy Faye, you will see she was animated. I think she was so good that she is currently my Best Actress pick for award season.

Andrew Garfield is an unlikely pick for Jim Baker for me and also an unlikely pairing with Chastain but by God, it works. It’s been a pleasure seeing the rise of Garfield as an actor because he has now turned into one of the better actors of our time.

My one critique is I think the movie stayed very surface and didn’t really go deep. We barely saw her kids, there was no mention of her remarriage and even in the credits it wasn’t shown that Tammy died of cancer. This may not be an issue if you are unfamiliar with her story but overall, I recommend the movie.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye can be rented on Amazon Prime