Elizabeth Banks, Zac Galifianakis
“THE BEANIE BUBBLE” My rating: B-(Apple+)
110 minutes | MPAA rating: R
Notwithstanding a transformative performance from funny guy Zac Galifianakis and solid work from his three leading ladies, Apple+’s “The Beanine Bubble” left me wondering just what message its creators wanted to send.
Part cautionary tale, part character study, part historical recreation, this feature debut from directors Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash manages to entertain even while spreading itself so thin that there’s a gaping hole in its middle.
“The Beanie Bubble” is based on the real-world rise and fall of Ty Warner, a designer whose plush Beanie toys made him a multi billionaire in the 1990s. The Beanies weren’t just huggable animal toys for the kiddies…by some weird quirk of mass psychosis and greed they became unregulated investment instruments. Customers snatched up each new Beanie character with the dream of re-selling the dolls at an immense profit.
Kind of like crypto before crypto.
Galifianakis, Geraldine Viswanathan
The screenplay by Gore and Zac Bissonette (the latter the author of a best-selling nonfiction study of the Beanie Baby phenomenon) borrows its basic form from no less a cinematic landmark than “Citizen Kane.” Like Orson Welle’s masterwork, this is a study of an enigmatic individual through the eyes of those who knew him…in this case three women key to Warner’s personal and private life. (We’re told that while fictional, these three characters are based on real women in Warner’s past.)
Moreover, the film assumes a twisted timeline, darting back and forth between incidents that covered more than a decade. The tale could easily have been told chronologically; the choice to slice and dice the narrative may have been seen as a way of keeping the audience on its toes. I frequently found it confusing.
Elizabeth Banks portrays Robbie, a working class gal who under Warner’s tutelage grows from auto repair shop employee to high-powered entrepreneur. She not only partners with Warner to build the Beanie brand, she becomes his lover (despite having a physically handicapped husband whom the film conveniently forgets). Thing is, their “partnership” was never formalized, so that when the inevitable breakup arrives, Robbie has no legal standing.
Sarah Snook, Galifianakis
The second woman in Warner’s life is Maya (Geraldine Viswanathan), a teen who rejects her parents’ dreams of a medical career to sign on as a part-time receptionist at Warner’s Ty Inc. Maya is a smart cookie who immediately sees the possibilities of marketing Beanie toys through a new invention called the Internet. She’s also the one who realizes that Beanie fans are using newfangled sites like ebay to resell the toys for huge profits, thus creating a market that Ty Inc. may cannily manipulate by limiting the kinds and numbers of new toys manufactured.
Both Robbie and Maya, in their retelling of events, claim that Warner is an insecure child-man, a decent enough designer but a short-sighted businessman, and that it was their innovations that led to the company’s success. (If customers rioting at toy stores can be considered a success.)
Like Robbie, Maya is financially screwed by Warner, who keeps her on at minimum wage despite her obvious value.
And both women make the case that once they left the company, Warner ran it into the ground, culminating with the burst of the so-called Beanie Bubble that left hundreds of thousands of “investors” holding the bag.
The third voice in all this belongs to Sheila (“Succession’s” Sarah Snook), the single mother of two young girls who finds herself falling for the charmingly boyish Ty Warner. The guy seems too good to be true…and of course he is.
Holding it all together is Galifianakis’ flamboyant turn as Warner. Despite his outrageous pastel suits and effeminate edges, this is not an overtly comic character. But he is wildly entertaining, overflowing with infantile enthusiasms and, once you get past the shiny package, some dark interior rumblings.
It’s a tough gig. Yeah, there’s plenty of business for an actor to sink his teeth into, but ultimately the Ty Warner we get is the one the three women want us to see. Galiafanakis has to make his character come alive within the limitations imposed on him by his three narrators.
For those accustomed to Galifaniakis going for the big laugh, be aware that he here keeps himself on a short leash. This may be his best effort yet at pure acting. He loses himself in the role (there were times when I forgot it was him). But at heart his character remains something of a maddening mystery.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 