Tiffany Haddish has come a long way since her breakthrough in Girls Trip last year, but also not far at all. With Malcolm D Lee’s film, everyone was like: “Yay! Tiffany Haddish!” She was a breath of fresh air. She was outrageous, hilarious and lovable. And she yanked it out of the mire of middling comedies into box-office success.
Now Haddish has another movie out and everyone’s like: “Oh yeah, Tiffany Haddish.” In Nobody’s Fool, she plays another loud, brash, obscene character: a newly released ex-con who crashes back into her sister’s life. It’s not that Haddish’s talent has diminished, more we feel as if we’ve seen this before. Especially those of us who caught Night School recently: a rushed-out, underwritten follow-up to Girls Night.
It is less to do with talent than predictability. Are female comedians particularly vulnerable to this? Haddish might note the fortunes of peers such as Amy Schumer, Rebel Wilson or Kate McKinnon – all likable performers in danger of telling the same joke too many times. Male comics used to be able to get away with wheeling out the same shtick for decades, from Bob Hope to Adam Sandler. But times have changed for them, too. Look at what Zach Galifianakis has done post-The Hangover (no one else has).
Sooner or later, if they are to continue having a movie career, comics need to move on. Take Steve Carell, who went from The Office and Despicable Me to an Oscar nomination for his straightest role, in Foxcatcher. Next he is playing Donald Rumsfeld. Even Adam Sandler changed his spots: The Meyerowitz Stories was more interesting than anything he’s done in the past 20 years (Punch-Drunk Love aside).
If Haddish really needs a role model at this point, she could do worse than Melissa McCarthy. Like Haddish, she made an early impact in Bridesmaids (for which she earned an Oscar nomination), then essentially played herself through progressively less surprising comedies: Identity Thief, The Heat, Tammy, Spy, right up to this year’s barely noticed Life of the Party. Now, McCarthy has surprised fans with the biopic Can You Ever Forgive Me?, in which she portrays Lee Israel, an author who turned her talents to literary forgery. Her performance has been acclaimed and there is talk of another Oscar nomination.
Maybe Haddish could make a similar transition. She is genuinely funny in real life, and far more complex than the characters she plays (her harrowing childhood is worthy of a movie itself). So much about Haddish suggests she is capable of more, or at least deserves better. So it’s encouraging to see her next film, The Kitchen, is shaping up to be a gritty crime thriller in a Widows vein. It co-stars Elisabeth Moss and, oh look, Melissa McCarthy.
Nobody’s Fool is in UK cinemas on Friday 23 November
