Tammy Faye (Jessica Chastain) and Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield) discover each other in the college and find the ultimate purpose to live together – spreading the message of God. With time, they become one of America’s biggest showrunners in the history of evangelical television shows. But with immense success comes challenges and personal conflicts that jeopardize their holy rank as America’s most influential and beloved televangelists.
Faye and Bakker led two of the biggest and most popular evangelical television shows, The PTL Club and The 700 Club. The Eyes of Tammy Faye is mostly based on the 2000 documentary with the same name. Most of the sources have been taken from this documentary.
Based on the true story and events, the film guarantees higher historical accuracy. Most of the thick points in the film are correct like Tammy Faye’s permanent makeup, her affair with the record producer Gary Paxton, her segment on penile implants, and interviewing AIDS activist Steve Pieters, etc.
The intensity is built in the middle of the film when Tammy and Jim suffer personal conflicts. I think during all the crises that begin to occur in the middle, the director missed dramatizing Jim Bakker’s affair that shattered their lives and reputation. That was a very critical incident and deserved minutes. The angle of the story bending towards their crisis should have been directed towards the affair.
More than the film’s entire making, average direction, and not-so-tightly-gripped screenwriting, the film earns respect from the audience through spectacular performances by the leading actors, Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield. Also, I must not forget to mention the film’s significant plus in brilliant makeup and hairstyling. I have read about Jessica’s makeup that it was prepared to clock around five hours along with prosthetics.
Garfield is in superb form but Jessica recently went on to win the Oscar for Best Actress for this role. She deserves it and I must say that it was really a tough call between her, Kristen, and Kidman for the roles they were nominated for. All the three ladies gave extraordinary performances. But I think Jessica may have won this contest for her incredible performance under very heavy makeup and she also sang some numbers herself. Plus, her portrayal was so spot on. You can clearly listen to the voice of Tammy Faye coming from Jessica’s mouth. If you observe Faye’s real videos on YouTube especially conducting an interview with Steve, you will realize that Jessica gave a very splendid performance.
The winner of two Academy Awards, The Eyes of Tammy Faye is an average drama that should only be watched to see Jessica and Garfield.
Ratings: 6.5/10
Sami Naik | Film Critic 