Poor writing and direction suck the life out of McCarthy’s “Party”

Sometimes I’ll see a movie and think to myself “This flick should be the heart of a university filmmaking class about how not to make a movie.” The Tom Cruise remake of “The Mummy” could be the basis of a course on inconsistent tone. “Suicide Squad” would make for a master class on bad editing. And “Life of the Party,” the new Melissa McCarthy vehicle, could form the bedrock of a whole series of classes about how bad writing and direction can kill a film.

“Party” opens with Deanna (McCarthy) getting dumped by her husband, Dan (Matt Walsh), mere seconds after the couple drop off their daughter for her senior year of college. Deanna decides to return to college herself to finish her own degree. What follows is a fish-out-of-water tale about an older, uncool single parent trying to find her place among a sea of college kids.

This movie may have a fairly hackneyed premise, but it unfolds in a relatively unexpected and non-cliche way. Most movies where a parent has to survive in their child’s environment would show said parent struggling to fit in with said kid’s circle of friends and embarrassing said kid in the process. “Party” goes a different way. Score a point for “Party.”

The movie gets another point for McCarthy’s character. Deanna is so sweet and well-meaning, and McCarthy really puts her all into the role. And the idea of someone rising from the wreckage after their life goes off the rails has potential to inspire. Deanna is the type character audiences love to pull for.

Unfortunately, “Party” is so poorly written and directed that any good qualities it has get eradicated in a tsunami of cinematic suckage.

Let’s start with the writing. This story is almost completely devoid of conflict. Deanna’s biggest hurdle is getting past her divorce, but that doesn’t seem to take more than a couple sessions of crying. Winning the acceptance of her daughter’s friends doesn’t present Deanna with much trouble. She gets picked on by a pair of snooty college girls in a plot strand that makes the flick feel like it takes place at a junior high school instead of a university, but even that is presented as a minor annoyance.

There’s really not anything that presents Deanna any real challenge, and thus the story is flat and uninteresting. This could’ve been corrected had the writers, McCarthy and her husband Ben Falcone, bothered to write a story where Deanna actually struggles to overcome significant obstacles. But they didn’t, and the story really suffers for it.

Bad writing doesn’t immediately doom a movie, provided the filmmakers know what they’re doing. But “Party” strikes out in that regard as well. Falcone directs, and judging by this movie, he knows nothing about how to shoot and direct comedy. A better director would find a way to rein in McCarthy’s seemingly endless ad-libbing. A better director would know to cut the scenes down in the editing room, keeping only the funniest bits and tightening the timing. Instead, Falcone lets scenes run far too long and gets sidetracked on unfunny character quirks.

A side-bummer about this movie: It wastes work for actors like Gillian Jacobs and the great Stephen Root. Root is reduced to a crazy gun-waving elderly person and seeing Jacobs in this just made me wish I was watching her in “Community.”

“Life of the Party” has a good premise focused on a likable protagonist. There are even a few (very few) chuckles to be had. But in the end, bad writing and filmmaking siphon away energy or life this movie once had, leaving behind the withered, zombie-like corpse of a comedy.

1 ½ Indy Fedoras out of 5

MPAA Rating: PG-13