Review Life of the Party (2018)

[Doctor Omega]

Life of the Party is a 2018 American comedy film directed by Ben Falcone and written by Falcone and Melissa McCarthy. It is the third film directed by Falcone and co-written by the pair, following Tammy (2014) and The Boss (2016). The film, starring McCarthy, Molly Gordon, Gillian Jacobs, Maya Rudolph, Julie Bowen, Matt Walsh, Debby Ryan, Adria Arjona, Jessie Ennis, Stephen Root, and Jacki Weaver, follows a newly divorced mother who returns to college to complete her degree, and ends up bonding with her daughter's friends.

Produced by On the Day Productions and New Line Cinema, the film was released on May 11, 2018, by Warner Bros. Pictures. It has grossed $54 million worldwide and received mixed reviews from critics, who called it "a frustratingly middling comedy that never really figures out what to do with all that talent and fails to produce consistent laughs."


Cast

• Melissa McCarthy as Deanna "Dee Rock" Miles
• Molly Gordon as Maddie Miles, Dan and Deanna's daughter
• Gillian Jacobs as Helen, a sorority sister who is older than the rest due to having been in a coma for eight years.
• Maya Rudolph as Christine Davenport, Deanna's neurotic and heavy drinking best friend
• Adria Arjona as Amanda, a sorority sister with "issues"
• Jessie Ennis as Debbie, another sorority sister with "issues"
• Debby Ryan as Jennifer, a "mean girl" in Deanna's archaeology class
• Matt Walsh as Daniel "Dan" Miles, Deanna's ex-husband, Maddie's father
• Julie Bowen as Marcie Strong, a real estate agent, Deanna's nemesis and Dan's lover
• Jacki Weaver as Sandy, Deanna's mother and Maddie's grandmother
• Stephen Root as Mike, Deanna's father and Maddie's grandfather
• Luke Benward as Jack Strong, a frat boy infatuated with Deanna
• Jimmy O. Yang as Tyler, Maddie's boyfriend and Jack's friend
• Yani Smone as Trina, Jennifer's snarky sidekick
• Shannon Purser as Connie
• Chris Parnell as Wayne Truzack, Deanna's professor
• Damon Jones as Frank Davenport, Christine's husband
• Heidi Gardner as Leonor, Deanna's reclusive Goth roommate
• Christina Aguilera as herself
• Ben Falcone as Uber Driver
• Nat Faxon as Lance
• Sarah Baker as Gildred
• Kevin Gutierrez as Water Bottle Student

 

[Doctor Omega]

Trailer: McCarthy Is The “Life of the Party”





Following its debut on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” earlier today, the trailer is now out for Melissa McCarthy’s new comedy “Life of the Party” at New Line Cinema.

Heavily inspired by the Rodney Dangerfield classic comedy “Back to School” which also starred a young Robert Downey Jr., McCarthy plays a longtime dedicated housewife who goes back to college after her husband suddenly dumps her.

Deanna lands in the same class and school as her daughter, Maddie (Molly Gordon), who’s not entirely sold on the idea. Plunging headlong into the campus experience, she finds her true self in a senior year no one ever expected.

Gillian Jacobs, Maya Rudolph, Julie Bowen, Matt Walsh, Molly Gordon, with Stephen Root and Jacki Weaver co-star. “Life of the Party” opens on May 11th.

 

[Doctor Omega]

Production

Filming began in August 2016 in the metro Atlanta area. The sorority house used in the film is The Twelve Oaks Bed & Breakfast (www.thetwelveoaks.com) located in Covington, GA. The interior of the mansion was replicated in a warehouse in Decatur, GA for the interior scenes and the exterior scenes were filmed on location at the inn.

Release

Life of the Party was released on May 11, 2018.[5] The first official trailer for the film was released on February 5, 2018.[6]

Reception

Box office

As of June 3, 2018, Life of the Party has grossed $46.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $8.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $55 million.[3]

In the United States and Canada, Life of the Party was released alongside Breaking In, and was projected to gross $18–21 million from 3,656 theaters in its opening weekend.[7] It made $4.9 million on its first day, including $700,000 from Thursday night previews, down from the $985,000 McCarthy's The Boss grossed in March 2016, and similar to the $650,000 grossed by Snatched on the Thursday before the same weekend the previous year.[2] The film went on to debut to $17.9 million, the lowest solo-starring opening of McCarthy's career, and finished second behind Avengers: Infinity War ($62 million in its third week); 80% of its audience was over the age of 25, while 70% was female.[8] It fell 57% in its second weekend, to $7.6 million, finishing fourth at the box office,[9] and another 33% to $5.1 million in its third, finishing fifth.[10]

Critical response

On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 38% based on 118 reviews, and an average rating of 5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Life of the Party's good-natured humor and abundance of onscreen talent aren't enough to make up for jumbled direction and a script that misses far more often than it hits."[11] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on reviews from 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews."[12] Audiences polled by CinemaScoregave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, higher than the "C+" earned by each of McCarthy and Falcone's previous two film collaborations.[8]

Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave the film two out of four stars, calling it "the latest Melissa McCarthy star vehicle that fails to do justice to the sheer awesomeness of its leading lady."