'Life Of The Party' Favors McCarthy's Gentle Warmth
Melissa McCarthy stars as a mom who rediscovers her identity at college in a comedy that brings out the actress/co-writer's sweet and sunny side.
Melissa McCarthy's capacity for sweetness has come full circle.
Her first big role was on Gilmore Girls, where she played the gentle, funny, burbling Sookie St. James. Sookie's dimples, her delightful chirp, and her unrelenting sunniness could have sunk the character as a little bit of a sap, but McCarthy carried it off, using about 10 percent of what she turned out to be capable of.
The friend she played whom she said in interviews was partly based on Guy Fieri — showed a darker, stranger, much more aggressive side of McCarthy, and that side carried her through , and . (Of those, was well received, and the other two, not so much.)
