The Beanie Bubble
Nothing succeeds like excess and another toy story taps into the dark streak beneath the sparkle – with style to spare.
Geraldine Viswanathan
It’s hard to comprehend today just what a phenomenon beanie babies were in the 1990s. Every child had to have one – or better still, the entire collection. And it wasn’t just about the toy per se, it was the value of it as a collector’s item. Nonetheless, the malleable plaything, artfully stuffed with plastic pellets and small enough to sneak into a backpack, was a child’s dream companion, complete with a tag that included a four-line poem. Thanks to astute marketing, the toy became a worldwide fad, was cited as the first “Internet sensation” and turned Ty Inc. into the most profitable toy company in the world.
The Beanie Bubble has three major factors going for it: it is set during the years of 1983 and 1993 and has a strong nostalgia appeal, it is a story of success and excess, and it is produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. Just as Mattel Inc. is raking in the millions with its newly turbo-charged Barbie line, so toys are becoming lucrative fodder for cinematic subject matter (cf. UglyDolls, the Transformers franchise, Lightyear, et al).
The new movie starts with the caption, “There are parts of the truth you just can’t make up. The rest, we did,” a sly stipulation that gives The Beanie Bubble an instant spring in its step. Essentially, this is the story of four people: the “strange and magical” entrepreneur Ty Warner (Zach Galifianakis) and the three women he sucked into his creative vortex. The latter are Robbie (Elizabeth Banks), Sheila (Sarah Snook) and Maya Kumar (Geraldine Viswanathan), all of whom are seduced by Ty’s unbridled bonhomie. Above all, Ty is a good listener and he draws on the ideas of all those all around him, be they receptionist, girlfriend or girlfriend’s progeny – and he has a nose for what works. However, he is distrustful of those in his immediate circle, in spite of their profitable input, and would prove more loyal to an uninformed outsider, based purely on a “track record.”
The heart of the story really belongs to Maya (modelled on the real-life Lina Trivedi) and Geraldine Viswanathan (The Broken Hearts Gallery) bestows her with great spark and truth. It was Maya/Trivedi who was really responsible for the toy’s success, building a website for the company and capitalising on the interest on eBay, when Ty himself was completely ignorant of the new technology. Five years later, having personally made $700 million from the toy, he increased Maya’s salary from $12 an hour to $20. Zach Galifianakis himself reaches all the high notes as Ty, but he never seems like a tangible human being, just a monster with a charismatic fleece. Nonetheless, as his romantic partners, both Elizabeth Banks and Sarah Snook provide the requisite pep.
The Beanie Bubble certainly milks its nostalgia to the full, from the garish production design and costumes to a banging soundtrack by the likes of Herbie Hancock, Queen, Janis Joplin and INXS. Much of this happened in the 1990s when Bill Clinton was in the White House, and there are wily jokes aplenty made at his expense. It should be explained, then, that Clinton’s vice president was Al Gore and that Gore’s daughter, Kristen, is co-director of The Beanie Bubble. And she wrote the screenplay. She certainly exhibits her father’s knack for telling a good story.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Zach Galifianakis, Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Snook, Geraldine Viswanathan, Tracey Bonner, Carl Clemons-Hopkins, Hari Dhillon, Ajay Friese, Delaney Quinn, Madison Johnson, Brian Troxell, Jason Burkey, Kurt Yaeger, Sweta Keswani.
Dir Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash, Pro Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Karen Lunder, Screenplay Kristin Gore, Ph Steven Meizler, Pro Des Molly Hughes, Ed Jane Rizzo, Music Damian Kulash and Nathan Barr, Costumes Renee Ehrlich Kalfus, Sound P.K. Hooker.
Apple Studios/Imagine Entertainment-Piece of Magic Entertainment/Apple TV+.
110 mins. USA. 2023. UK and US Rel: 28 July 2023. Cert. 15.
