Across cultures, films are unkind to actors who have got the talent but not the figure. Writers don’t know what to do with them apart from putting them in comic situations. Melissa McCarthy is one of them. She showed what one can do under the direction of Paul Feig in Bridesmaids and this week again she soars as Feig conjures up an enjoyable spoof on spy movies. McCarthy plays Susan Cooper, a CIA desk operative who goes into the field to avenge the death of her colleague Bradley Fine (Jude Law). Will she get over her size and her sizeable image of a bumbling assistant and excel in the supposedly sleek world of espionage where stiff upper lips and starched suits hold sway? There is a running gag where field agent Rick Ford (Jason Statham spoofs his machismo image with glee), constantly reminds her how she is not the right choice for the mission by narrating his adventures.
She is contrasted with the ice-cold sensuality of the rather vacuous counterpoint Raina (Rose Byrne). Then there is Nargis Fakhri in a cameo to create a dumb contrast. The point is simplistic — size doesn’t matter, but Feig ensures that as McCarthy gets going there is no inertia as the scene frenetically shifts from Paris to Rome to Budapest. In between there are self aware jokes between Susan and her fellow desk operative played effortlessly by Miranda Hart.
However, if you denude the narrative off the gags, Spy won’t be able to stand up as a thriller. Liberally peppered with the F-word and comic references to the nether regions of the body, the comedy does get deliberately bawdy at times but McCarthy redeems this contrived mission with a performance that makes you forget her round shape despite constantly being reminded of it.
From being addressed as a Bulgarian clown to the kind of eccentric hobbies she is given in her assumed identities, Feig wants us to know how such entities are stereotyped in films. But he doesn’t want to let go of the target audience who are not in for a case study. So for most of the first half he laughs at her and not with her with references about not just her weight but also her lack of sex appeal. As the film progresses he ensures that whoever takes her lightly or makes fun of her does it at his or her own peril. As he empowers a much derided soul, we root for her. It is a small step in breaking a widely held image even if it is done in a feel good or one might say sanitised environment.
