Jessica Chastain Shines in ‘In the Eyes of Tammy Faye’
Written by Melanie Thompson
In the Eyes of Tammy Faye attempts to tell the story of a woman whose legacy includes humble beginnings in rural Minnesota, puppets reciting Bible Verses, an American Evangelical empire, and a fall from grace satirized across the nation. Lead by a nearly unrecognizable Jessica Chastain as the titular Tammy Faye Bakker, the cast is rounded out by Andrew Garfield as Jim Bakker, Tammy’s husband and the other half of the televangelist power couple; Vincent D’Onofrio as Jerry Falwell Sr., a prominent Evangelical leader who ultimately served as the antagonist to the couple; and Cherry Jones as Rachel LaValley, Tammy’s disapproving mother unamused by the flashiness of her daughter’s chosen vocation.
Without the commitment of Chastain to the embodiment of this woman, the movie could have been a caricature, with little more depth than the satire of the couple on late-night television in the 80s and 90s.
The film, inspired by a 2000 documentary of the same name, begins with a young Tammy at a church service in a small, rural Pentecostal church in Minnesota where she has what she believes to be a divine experience and decides that her life’s purpose is to share the love of God with others. This sends Tammy to Minnesota Bible College where she meets Jim Bakker for the first time. The two bonded over a genuine excitement for the Bible and teaching “the good news.” Tammy and Jim decide to get married, but they’re quickly kicked out of the college as there was a strict rule against two students being wed. Jim’s ambition takes over for the two of them when he shows up with a brand-new car, which is meant to take them across the country for the pair to create a tour of sorts with Jim giving the message and Tammy singing and using puppets. As Tammy begins to ask questions about how the young couple can afford such a car, a soft-spoken but enthusiastic Garfield simply says “God does not want us to be poor!” At this moment, the fundamental belief that will drive each of Jim’s choices is revealed.
Ultimately, the couple is invited to be a part of Pat Robertson’s popular Christian Broadcasting Network to do a children’s program. Despite their new role at CBN, Jim’s sights were set higher with the idea of creating a Christian late-night program of sorts, which would become “The 700 Club”—a program still running to this day now hosted by Pat Robertson himself. Jim grows a following on this new programming, but as he spends more time at the studio, he insists that Tammy stay home while she is pregnant with their first child. As Jim’s sphere of influence grows, Tammy grows stifled.
In the midst of this tension, the Bakkers are invited to a party at Pat Robertson’s lavish home, where the men are very specifically seated together with the women sitting at their own tables discussing motherhood, purposefully left out of the “important” conversation. True to Tammy’s bold spirit, she observes the situation and chooses to pull up a seat at the men’s table right next to Jim. It is here that we see Jerry Falwell Sr. rather condescendingly explain why the soul of the country is in the hands of the good, upstanding men who so selflessly want to be preaching the word of God for millions to see.
This is where something ever so slightly shifts in the course of the movie and in Tammy’s life. When Jerry Falwell Sr. brings up homosexuality as a sin, Tammy refuses to be swayed from her convictions, saying that she just sees queer people as other human beings that she loves. “You know we’re all just people made of the same old dirt, and God didn’t make any junk!” It is this refusal to bend to the will of power in Jerry Falwell that remains intact in Tammy Faye. It is a moment that foreshadows one of the most memorable moments of Tammy Faye Bakker’s legacy: when she had a Christian pastor living with AIDS on her program.
Eventually, Jim and Tammy separated from CBN and started their own network called PTL, or Praise the Lord Network, where they quickly doubled in size and began to amass millions of dollars from viewers calling in to become “partners,” a word they used instead of donors. Jim would give a rousing message of the importance of giving money over to God and Tammy would sing a song ensuring that a miracle was just around the corner. Soon the PTL would expand to include Heritage USA, a kind of Christian theme park in Fort Mill, South Carolina. Supporters such as Jerry Falwell continued to financially support PTL as he petitioned for Bakker’s help in electing George H.W. Bush just as they had done for Ronald Reagan.
Throughout this time, we see the dissolution of the marriage between Jim and Tammy Faye, even with the arrival of their second child. During this time, Tammy begins to self-medicate as she continues to find a way to make their marriage last. This comes to a head in 1987 when Jim Bakker is accused of sexual misconduct with a church secretary years earlier, an affair that he covered up using ministry funds. Bakker resigned with the breaking of this news, with the plan for Jerry Falwell to take over until the scandal had quieted down. This is when Jerry Falwell permanently bars the Bakkers from ever returning to the network.
The movie makes an effort at showing a complicated protagonist, who, by all accounts, had genuine faith and who also profited off that very faith. Without the commitment of Chastain to the embodiment of this woman, the movie could have been a caricature, with little more depth than the satire of the couple on late-night television in the 80s and 90s. Each member of the principal cast works hard to create fully realized and accurate portrayals, showing that they paid painstaking attention to the personhood of the figure they were portraying.
That being said, the script leaves something to be wanted. It was often close to finding the nuance of a story at the intersection of consumerism, politics, and faith without ever totally arriving in the tension.
Does it retell a familiar story? Yes. Does it say anything new about that story? Not particularly, especially when the 2000 documentary already did much of the same thing.
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