Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made is a Mildly Engaging Failure
So far, Disney is having a really mediocre year. The streak continues in the mildly enjoyable Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made, directed by the ACADEMY AWARD WINNING DIRECTOR OF THE MOTION PICTURE Spotlight, Tom McCarthy. What the fuck. I know. We follow Timmy Failure (Winslow Fegley) in his quest as a “private detective” to find his Failure-mobile and restore order to the town of Portland as he and his pet Polar Bear by the name of TOTAL (like the cereal) believe their agency “Total Failure” is the best in the world. What follows is a jumbled film that doesn’t exactly know what it wants to be.
I honestly have zero clue what I just watched — but I did mildly enjoy it. I particularly thought Wallace Shawn was hella-entertaining as Fredrick Crocus, Timmy’s teacher. He was the funniest part of the film — especially when you see his sheer desperation being conveyed through his facial expressions. Every scene involving Crocus’ desperate ego were inherently funny, proving that Wallace Shawn can carry a scene entirely with a mediocre script. I will say that I did enjoy Winslow Fegley as Timmy, even though his character wasn’t really entertaining. It’s clear that he is autistic — but it seems as though the director and writers didn’t want to mention that element. Why, though? We try to strive and push for representation on all fronts in Hollywood, yet, when it’s time to do exactly that, they always chicken out. It frustrates the hell out of me, especially as someone who is on the spectrum. I acted the same way Timmy did in my childhood — and it’s so clear that it’s exactly what the director and writer want to present, but they are so afraid of explicitly saying that he is autistic that I found it profundly embarassing.
I also did like the supporting cast of Craig Robinson & Ophelia Lovibond as Mr. Jenkins and Timmy’s mother, respectively. They did add a bit of fun and livelihood to the dull setting of the film. The main problem with Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made, is that it doesn’t really know what it wants to be. A wannabe indie coming-of-age movie? A detective film? An action movie? What does it REALLY want to be? I have no idea. At 99 minutes, Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made has no real concise story — as it tries to cram in so much from from Stephen Pastis’ book. It gets lost in its fluff at trying to tell a story, but it doesn’t really have anything going for. Because of that, I thought that Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made was a pretty boring and uneventful 99 minutes. Yes, it does have solid performances, good-looking photography from Masanobu Takayanagi and a mildly engaging story, but it still isn’t enough for me to scream at the clouds and harass everyone I know for them to see the movie like I did with Uncut Gems. But, hey, it’s a Disney+ movie so we shouldn’t really expect anything good coming out from a direct-to-consumer product, right? RIGHT?!?!? The mediocre streak continues.
✯✯
