"Life of the Party" (PG-13, 1:45) is a comedy directed by Ben Falcone and co-written by Falcone and his wife (and star of the film), Melissa McCarthy. That's bad news for Movie Fans. The only feature films that Falcone has written and directed were star vehicles for his wife - "Tammy", "The Boss" and this one - and they're ALL terrible! McCarthy is an Oscar and Golden Globe nominee and Emmy winner whose best comedy movies - like "Spy", "Ghostbusters", "Heat" and "Bridesmaids" - were all directed by Paul Feig. HE knows how to use McCarthy's considerable comedic talents. Too bad Feig didn't direct this one.
McCarthy plays Deanna, a sweet suburban mom whose only child, Maddie (Molly Gordon), is starting her senior year in college. Immediately after Deanna and her husband, Dan (Matt Walsh), drop off Maddie at her sorority house, Dan tells Deanna that he wants a divorce so he can marry his mistress (Emmy winner Julie Bowen). All of this comes as a complete shock to Deanna who leans on her parents (Stephen Root and Oscar and Golden Globe nominee Jacki Weaver) and her best friend (Maya Rudolph). Deanna bemoans the years wasted in her marriage, which included her dropping out of college (because she was pregnant with Maddie) a year before earning her archaeology degree. But then she has an idea.
Deanna re-enrolls in her old college for her senior year, which makes her classmates with her daughter. Maddie has mixed emotions, especially when Deanna starts hanging out at Maddie's sorority house, but Maddie's friends really like having Deanna around and Maddie goes along with it. All of this opens the door for Deanna to go to college parties, sleep with college guys (well, one guy), encourage her creepy roommate (Heidi Gardner) to be less creepy and help Maddie's friends figure out their lives, including inspiring Maddie's academically challenged friend (Gillian Jacobs) to make archaeology her major too. As all this happens, a couple mean-girl college classmates, the divorce proceedings and Dan's impending remarriage become growing sources of frustration for Deanna (or Dee-Rock, as her classmates call her).
"Life of the Party" is an unfunny, unprofessional mess. The movie's premise has potential, but lazy writing gives us precious few good jokes and the dialog and plot points have most characters speaking and acting in ways that don't make sense, even in a silly comedy. Meanwhile, amateurish directing puts too much of the burden on McCarthy to make "lemons out of lemonade" (one of the movie's so-called jokes). The acting isn't much better. McCarthy is fine, but almost everyone else has smiles glued on their faces (even at times most normal people would be frowning) in a desperate attempt to convince us they're having a good time, so we should too. I hope McCarthy and Falcone have a long, happy marriage, but it would be nice if their professional partnership would stop making the rest of us so unhappy. Creatively, they're now 0-3. There's simply no life in this party. "D"
