Hope Ann Gregory (The Big Bang Theory’s Melissa Rauch) is a frightful despicable person. The opening scene where she is fingering herself whilst lying on her bed watching a video of her glory days winning a Bronze Olympic Medal as a gymnast, sets the tone for vulgarity that is the main thrust of this crude and rather lame comedy. Hope is a foul-mouth narcissistic washed-up athlete who treats her pathetic mailman father (an excellent Gary Cole) with disdain and robs him and the local shopkeepers of her hometown of Amherst Ohio who feel obliged to keeping spoiling her as if she was still a champion.
She’s reached rock-bottom but not quite as low as her poor ex gymnastics coach who commits suicide. Hope had fallen out with her years ago and is surprised to learn that the woman has nevertheless left her a legacy of $500000 on the strict condition that Hope take over the training of 16 year old Maggie Townsend (Haley Lu Richardson) a gymnast who has the potential to win an Olympic medal too.
Hope reluctantly agrees to take the task on but she steers the youngster wrong as the last thing that she wants is someone else to win a medal and displace her as the feted local hero. The plan may have worked but for the visit to the gym of Lance Tucker (Sebastian Stan) the Olympic Team Scout who demands to train Maggie himself as he sees that she is suddenly losing all her form. Lance, an ex Gold Medallist himself, was also the man who took Hope’s virginity and neither of them has ever got over both of those achievements.
Hope therefore has to change her ways to keep in with Maggie, as under the terms of the legacy she must train her right up to the Olympic games or she will not get a penny. She has however done such an excellent job of convincing us of her inbuilt meanness that it all seems too little too late to redeem her properly, and save this movie too. It does at least have one redeeming highlight with the most superb naked acrobatic sex scene with Hope and Lance which is also the first time that anyone ever breaks out into a sweat in this story and truly deserves a gold medal.
Also in the mix is ‘Twitchy’ (Thomas Middleditch) the geeky gym co-owner who has always carried a torch for Hope even though she has treated him so dismissively for years. He is there to give the rather inane ‘happy ever after ending’ which is supposed to complete the transformation of Hope from complete bitch to Saint.
The movie was surprisingly executive produced by the usually reliable Duplass Brothers from a script that Melissa Rauch wrote with her husband Winston, and it seems quite remarkable that she didn’t write herself a more dimensional role and one that showcased her talent for good comedy.
