Tammy’s Always Dying

Directed by Amy Jo Johnson, Tammy’s Always Dying follows Anastasia Phillips’ Kathy as she attempts to live her own life while also caring for her mean-spirited, alcoholic mother (Felicity Huffman’s Tammy). It’s clear fairly early on that Tammy’s Always Dying, for the most part, works best as a showcase for its two central performances, as scripter Joanne Sarazen delivers an often aggressively erratic narrative that’s simultaneously too familiar and egregiously oddball – with, in terms of the latter, the subplot involving Kathy’s appearance on a trashy talk show not adding a whole lot to the picture’s overall impact. The movie’s watchable vibe, then, is due almost entirely to the above-average efforts of both Phillips and Huffman, and while Huffman is predictably solid (and somewhat unrecognizable) as the grungy Tammy, Phillips easily knocks it out of the park and generally anchors the proceedings with her down-to-earth and completely sympathetic turn – which does, in the end, cement Tammy’s Always Dying as a decent little character study that succeeds (albeit mildly) despite treading exceedingly well-worn territory.

**1/2 out of ****

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