The construction of her squad of children is troubling, mostly because her branding seems to borrow from the Black Panthers (Claire, at one point, describes the look Michelle goes for as "Japanese-y black power," a description I have no desire to touch with a 10-foot pole, and that the movie probably shouldn't have touched either). After taking Rachel to a Girl Scouts-esque meeting, Michelle decides to start a for-profit brownie sale empire, using children as salespeople and Rachel's kitchen to mass-produce thousands of brownies. ![]() Here's Michelle's story: After getting out of prison, she goes to live with her former assistant Claire (a very game but bland Kristen Bell) and Claire's daughter, Rachel. ![]() But she's always playing the same character. It's undeniably progress that a woman is getting slotted into movies like this these days, and I don't want to detract from that - she is literally incapable of a box office flop - but I also don't want to pretend like her canon isn't starting to feel flat. In the past several years, McCarthy's played a bridesmaid, an identity thief, an actual thief, a cop, a spy, and, now, a mogul. "It's Will Ferrell, but this time he plays an anchorman!" Or a race car driver, or a figure skater. The movie passes the Bechdel Test early and often, Michelle does a brilliant duet of "All I Do Is Win" with T-Pain, and I even laughed out loud a handful of times.īut overall, the movie proves that Melissa McCarthy is to the 2010s what Will Ferrell was to the 2000s, in that string of movies where Ferrell played what felt like the same character over and over. There are things to like about this movie! Melissa McCarthy is hilarious (vast understatement) and her character, Michelle Darnell, an orphan-turned-megalomaniac-mogul-turned-ex-con, is funny. ![]() That's not to say I sat miserably in the dark for the duration. I'm glad I stayed in the theater until the blooper reel rolled during the end credits of The Boss, because now I have proof that the cast of the film had much more fun making it than I had watching it.
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