Movie Review: The Eyes of Tammy Faye

The movie “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” is about Tammy Faye Baker who along with Jim Baker went from preaching the bible to millions of people on TV, to slowly turning that noble cause into cheating people with a huge Nationwide con. Most of us have wondered that if two people believed in God as much as they did, why were they not afraid that using God to help them cheat hundreds of thousands of people out of their money would be the ultimate sin? Given the obvious stupidity and National exposure of what they were doing, why were they not afraid of being caught by the FBI and just about every other law enforcement agency? Eventually they were caught and Jim Baker was ultimately sentenced to 100 years in jail. Why he was released early was never fully explained, and now he is once again on TV preaching about the Bible.

Tammy Faye passed away in 2007 of both colon and lung cancer. We learn about her constant drinking of diet coke during this film and we could speculate that this could be part of her reason for getting two cancers. Tammy Faye was a woman who believed that the more made up you are the better looking you are, even to the point of tattooing permanent eyebrows and lip liner. Why she thought this was a good look is anybody’s guess.

Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield play Tammy Faye and Jim Baker expertly in this film, unfortunately the majority of the story is about their lives during their years of being a big hit on TV, and not enough real story. Too much of this period in their careers is also repetitive and boring. I would have preferred learning much more about the details of their scams and how they rationalized stealing so much money from so many good people. There were some examples of their charitable causes in this story, but that was never enough to justify what they did for so long on while preaching the Bible on Television.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for The Eyes of Tammy Faye (a poor title for this movie in my opinion) are a low 64%. I agree with this rating and do not recommend this movie.