Hi everyone! I’ve been pretty deep into wedding planning lately and haven’t felt much like blogging, but I wanted to pop back in and tell you all about the movie I saw last night, because it was just so good. Spy features Melissa McCarthy as a desk-bound CIA agent who goes undercover to infiltrate the world of an arms dealer and prevent a terrorist attack–and of course, all sorts of hijinks ensue.
First off, the movie is just plain hilarious. It has the perfect combination of witty zingers, juvenile humor, and physical comedy–something for everyone.
That alone would be enough to recommend it, but it’s also a film with a fat heroine whose size isn’t used as a joke, which was so refreshing to watch. McCarthy’s character, Susan Cooper, finds herself socially invisible as a not-so-young fat woman–so she uses that invisibility to her advantage and ends up subverting everyone’s expectations.
For what it’s worth, she spends much of the movie looking gorgeous. Although she is assigned to play a dowdy Midwestern tourist in a neon pink track suit and cat t-shirt, she quickly changes out of that disguise and into a more glamorous one. I especially loved the outfit she wears toward the end of the movie, which made me want to run out and immediately buy a black blazer with silver accents.
I also loved that Spy is, at its heart, about a kickass female spy taking down a rather likeable female villain. The main female characters are smart and competent, whereas the main male characters are ridiculous spy-movie-trope-parodies who keep getting in the way: from Jude Law as a suave and assholey James Bond type, to Jason Stratham as a rogue agent who’s constantly bragging about his improbable exploits, to Peter Serafinowicz as a sleazeball whose main talent is sexual harassment.
Spy also features appearances by two actors I love, Morena Baccarin (a.k.a. Inara from Firefly) and Allison Janney (C.J. Cregg from The West Wing), as well as an amusing cameo by 50 Cent. And it introduced me to a new favorite: British comedian Miranda Hart, who plays Cooper’s bumbling but supportive best friend. She’s hilarious, and I definitely want to check out more of her work.
Overall, I recommend Spy to anyone who wants to spend two hours laughing. It stands on its own as a funny movie with a good plot and pacing, and it’s also awesome to see a fat woman using both her wits and her physical abilities to kick ass.