The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)

Andrew Garfield and Jessica Chastain really channel Jim and Tammy Baker in this remake of the 2000 biopic. Tammy Faye’s life unfolds from her childhood fascination with religion and her turbulent and largely unaffectionate childhood, to her courtship with a young Jim. In this depiction she is outspoken and strident, daring to take a seat at a table with the men advising her husband on his growing career, much to the disdain of a conservative like Jerry Falwell. I am not sure how much truth there is behind all this, but the other tele-evageslists depicted are really misogynists, but Baker is depicted as loving women, to a fault. Chastain, who won an Academy Award for her performance, plays Tammy Faye as a pure soul, someone who believed in all of her causes and was surrounded by inferior men who consistently tried to dim her inner brightness. The film has been criticized for its preoccupation with hair and make-up, but that seems true to the character, and it won in this category as well at the 2022 Oscars.