Tammy McDonald (Felicity Huffman) is a middle-aged woman who is always on the verge of dying, a result of her alcoholism and drug abuse compelling her to flirt with the idea of suicide, which is normally just a cue for her to get the necessary attention from her daughter, Cathy (Anastasia Phillips), who is growing weary of her mother’s erratic behaviour, and wishes she would just get her life together and not cause the hassle to everyone around her, including her friend, Doug (Clark Johnson), at whose bar Cathy works in order to support her mother. However, Tammy soon realizes that a lifetime of wishing for her death may have finally borne some fruit, as she is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, which she signals as her sign to finally just succumb to her addiction before she perishes from a long, painful disease, with very little hope of any recovery. Cathy overcomes the initial shock and adopts something of a controversial view that her mother should die sooner rather than later, which is only worsened when she discovers a local tabloid television show is built on the tragedies of the ordinary population, who normally benefit massively from having their trauma broadcast to audiences around the country. Book deals, speaking engagements and a permanent place in the public consciousness seems to be a great way to cash in on the decades of strife her mother put her through – however, for the first time in her life, Tammy starts to pull herself together, and quite earnestly refuses to die, responding well to her treatments and gradually giving up her bad habits as a way of not letting go of the fragile life she’s been given, which only infuriates Cathy even more, since she now has finally gotten the mother she has always wanted, but at the expense of it occurring right at the end of her life, making their time together exceptionally finite.

Tammy’s Always Dying is a truly bewildering film – on one hand, it is an eccentric dark comedy fronted by an exceptionally talented character actress giving one of her best performances in years. On the other hand, it’s an insidious film that presents a horrifying vision of cancer, often trivializing it to a character trait and being excessively flippant about issues that simply do not correlate with any decent filmmaking, even the most harrowing attempts at using levity as a means of effective storytelling. The film occupies an ambigious space between pathos and indecency, sampling from both of them frequently, but never at the same time, creating quite an unsettling story that manages to convey a compelling message, but is never quite as sharp or poignant as it should’ve been. In all honesty, this is a film that requires some patience and a great deal of suspension of disbelief, both of which are entirely necessary to compensate for the fact that Tammy’s Always Dying is a truly miserable film that has a brilliant story at the core, which is betrayed by lacklustre direction, that not even a wonderfully layered performance from Felicity Huffman (who is marketed at the film’s star but is sidelined far too frequently to make way for more unimpressive performances to take preference) can elevate beyond overly-manipulative dreck masquerading as an idiosyncratic dark comedy that believes a gritty, bleak approach to such a story constitutes some kind of profound filmmaking. Tammy’s Always Dying is a sadly mediocre exercise that never reaches its full potential, and falters far too frequently to be considered anything more than a middling attempt at subversive dark humour intermingling with a touching story of motherhood and the volatility of life.

So much of Tammy’s Always Dying is built on Felicity Huffman’s performance, which is not necessarily a bad decision, as she is one of the few truly great aspects of this film. An actress constantly shoved into supporting roles in which she defies the odds and manages to be quite compelling even if the project itself doesn’t care too much for her, Huffman rarely is afforded the chance to lead a film. It did take a relatively small film like Tammy’s Always Dying to give her one of her first central roles since her breakthrough performance in Transamerica, but she does shine in a relatively subpar film, elevating the material to the point of it being almost passable, solely because of her dedication to a character that has very little depth in the first place, but which Huffman makes memorable. It’s the archetypal unglamorous, foul-mouthed character that many actresses seek out at some point as a way of demonstrating their range, and in this regard isn’t designed to be anything particularly special, nor noteworthy in any coherent way. However, given these challenges, Huffman delivers a terrific, moving portrayal of a self-destructive woman on the verge of a complete breakdown. The inherent problem with this film is that it doesn’t give Huffman nearly enough to do – she does very well in the moments that place her in the centre, but the film doesn’t seem to realize this, as evident by the fact that they focus so much of the story on Anastasia Phillips’ character of Cathy, who is a fundamentally less interesting individual. Phillips is very good in the film, but the character she plays is entirely dependent on Huffman’s character to make any impact.

Tammy’s Always Dying is ultimately a film about a mother and daughter mending a toxic relationship. When they’re together, the film is very good, but the moment the attention shifts away from their interactions and becomes some downbeat tale of Cathy going in search of some meaning, it loses much of its goodwill. The film does regain some of its raw power in the final act, when it recalibrates to the central storyline, and presents Huffman and Phillips together in a full-circle moment, and mercifully ends in a way that may be considered somewhat controversial, but is at least audacious enough to warrant the attention. The film is just not all that interested in this side of the story for the most part – there are so many moments that go entirely unexplored, such as the roots of the two protagonists’ bond with the character played by Clark Johnson (who is incredible, but awfully underused, which is unfortunate, since Doug was the film’s most enigmatic character and much like Tammy, he falls victim to the film’s pandering to the angst of a young woman who is simply not interesting enough to warrant even an iota of the attention), or the more compelling aspects of the central relationship, whether it be the roots of their hostility or the reasons for their communication channels to have broken down to the point where they’ve become so ensconced in their anger, they can’t acknowledge the person before them isn’t an adversary, but rather someone suffering from some kind of inner turmoil. The film just simply fails to find its footing, and this is solely the result of a disconnect between the premise, which is relatively promising, and the overall execution of a decent idea, which don’t come together in any coherent way, resulting in a messy attempt at dark comedy that is neither smart nor interesting.

In all honesty, Tammy’s Always Dying is quite simply a film that wants to break our hearts with a tragic storyline without putting in the effort to have the serious conversations that are needed to give insights into the human condition that it seems to believe itself as espousing with such immense sincerity, when in actuality, its just a jumbled mess of ideas. The film tries so hard to be devastating and profound but ends up simply being a vapid, miserable experience that can’t find its way out of the despair. This is a film completely devoid of any hope, and some may even find the way the death is handled almost tasteless – Tammy’s Always Dying believes itself to be frank and matter-of-fact, but it often finds itself resorting to cheap archetypes, the same manipulative narrative beats that fill every available moment with overwrought commentary that leads nowhere, and an uncomfortable portrayal of mental illness, addiction and disease that often trivializes the struggle, presenting each of these issues as plot devices that serve no purpose than to give the characters nuance and personality, rather than being willing to take the time to explore them in detail, or at least present them in a way that feels honest. Tammy’s Always Dying is a very predictable film, and even if we consider that there are some very good performances that persist throughout it, it just never gets to any coherent point, other than reminding us that death is terrible and that life goes on. There’s nothing this film says that couldn’t be found in the countless other films that have similar subject matter, and actually treat the individuals it depicts with some form of respect. Bordering dangerously close on exploitative, Tammy’s Always Dying is simply not a good film, which is troubling, as it had immense potential that it never appeared to be intent on realizing, as the effort required was clearly too much for a film that never quite hits the stride it could with such a powerful story. There’s a good film hidden somewhere in here, it’s just too obscured by the overwrought commentary to actually be seen for more than a few moments at a time, which is why this is such an unfortunate disappointment of a film.