'The Bronze': A raunchy gymnastics comedy that sticks its landing
The Bronze is a story of small-town celebrity, of onetime achievement, and then of not achieving much of anything at all, a tale of intense gymnastic competitions and intensely gymnastic sex. The latter takes place in a motel and requires two of the stars of this mostly fiendishly funny dark comedy (and their respective body doubles) to undergo as many position changes as a candidate for president.
The Bronze is a story of small-town celebrity, of onetime achievement, and then of not achieving much of anything at all, a tale of intense gymnastic competitions and intensely gymnastic sex. The latter takes place in a motel and requires two of the stars of this mostly fiendishly funny dark comedy (and their respective body doubles) to undergo as many position changes as a candidate for president.
Well, not that many, but a lot.
Set in the sleepy heartland town of Amherst, Ohio, The Bronze stars Melissa Rauch, known to legions of fans of TV's The Big Bang Theory as Bernadette Rostenkowski. Here, she is Hope Ann Greggory, a spoiled and especially foulmouthed layabout who is living off her moment of fame. A dozen years earlier, she scored a bronze medal for the United States with a near-perfect routine, even though she had just ruptured her Achilles tendon. Her coach, a bearish Russian woman, had pushed her on, but the damage was done. Hope medaled, but she would never medal again.
Still, her victory was good enough for Amherst. There was a parade, a sign erected in her honor, she had all the free food she could eat forever - or at least that's how she saw it.
Now, Hope lives with her postal-worker dad (Gary Cole), spending her considerable allowance (and the extra cash she takes out of the mailbags from his truck) on sweats and sneakers, junk food, booze, and drugs. She throws temper tantrums. She refuses to get a job. She curses. She's a horror.
And then an offer comes in to coach a gymnastics prodigy, the insufferably perky Maggie (Haley Lu Richardson). Hope doesn't want to do it, but if she does, there's a big inheritance to be had. Reluctantly - no, spitefully - she takes Maggie on.
Written by the star with her husband, Winston Rauch, and directed by Bryan Buckley, a commercial director making his feature debut, The Bronze seems forever in danger of sinking into the quicksand of a sketch-comedy bit blown up to movie proportions. It has happened enough with Saturday Night Live spin-offs - It's Pat and Stuart Saves His Family, to name an egregious two.
But Rauch is so committed to her snotty, bitter, up-speaking protagonist that she finds the real humanity lurking there. The relationship between Hope and her father, Stan, is akin to a passive-aggressive ping-pong match. Anyone who has been a parent will feel Stan's pain - and understand the lengths to which he goes to try to fix things in his daughter's sorry, self-centered life.
Thomas Middleditch (HBO's Silicon Valley) joins the fray as Ben, an earnest employee of the local gym who suffers from low self-esteem and also suffers abuse at the hands (and mouth) of Hope. She calls him "Twitchy" because of a nervous affliction. It is not, at least at first, a term of endearment.
And Sebastian Stan is Lance, the U.S. team's new head gymnastics coach and Hope's former, er, well . . . lover doesn't seem quite the right word. The rivalry between these two is rife with insults, innuendo, and cruelty.
The Bronze, for all its crudeness and lewdness (Melissa Raunch, anyone?) and wonky comedy, is actually a good old-fashioned tale of redemption. There may be hope for Hope after all.
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The Bronze
Directed by Bryan Buckley. With Melissa Rauch, Gary Cole, Thomas Middleditch, Haley Lu Richardson, and Sebastian Stan.
Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics.
Running time: 1 hour, 40 mins.
Parent's guide: R (profanity, nudity, sex, drugs, adult themes).
Playing at: Area theaters.