Trainwreck

Comic Amy Schumer's sneaky, subversive humor—earthy, culturally relevant, confessional—has no limits: in fact, nothing is too intimate in this raunchy, role-reversal rom-com. The story here begins with a flashback, as a philandering father (Colin Quinn) informs young Amy Townsend and her sister why he and their mother are divorcing, having them repeat: “Monogamy isn't realistic.” Flash-forward 23 years, with hard-drinking, commitment-phobic Amy now a magazine writer and serial slut, seducing whom she wants when she wants, but never spending the night (her man-of-the-moment is WWE muscleman John Cena). Her saucy, shallow editor (Tilda Swinton) assigns sports-loathing Amy to interview Aaron Conners (Bill Hader), a successful Manhattan orthopedist whose patients include America's top athletes, such as his sensitive but strangely stingy best-buddy, NBA superstar LeBron James. Obviously charmed by Amy's uninhibited candor, the sweetly geeky doctor invites her to dinner. This, of course, leads to drinks—and Amy climbing on top of him. But there are plenty of spiky speed bumps along this road to romance. Written by Schumer and directed by Judd Apatow, Trainwreck is episodic and overly long, but much of it works. Recommended. (S. Granger)