Whereas most recent McCarthy roles start with a comic caricature, then fill in just enough emotional nuance to make her ostensibly a real person, Spy takes the reverse route, presenting Susan first as a relatable, humble figure, then building a larger-than-life story around her embracing her inner confidence and becoming the super-spy she was meant to be.
Unlike The Heat’s ball-busting Officer Mullins, or Bridesmaids’ hyper-confident weirdo Megan, Susan initially exhibits none of the self-assurance and braggadocio of McCarthy’s previous two Feig-helmed roles early on in Spy, she’s playing much more in the vein of her lovable Gilmore Girls character, Sookie St. That role is one Susan Cooper, a meek, obsequious CIA analyst stuck working in “the basement,” providing earpiece assistance to her in-the-field super-agent, Bradley Fine (Jude Law, doing an American James Bond riff). In Spy, the third and thus-far best McCarthy/Feig collaboration, they bring new, deep shading to this character type, creating the best role of McCarthy’s career, and one of the best comedic roles, female or otherwise, in recent memory. McCarthy’s comic persona over the last half-decade has been defined by outsized confidence: She plays brash women who don’t let other people’s perceptions interfere with their extreme self-assurance, whether it’s warranted or not. In two previous collaborations with director Paul Feig- Bridesmaids and The Heat -Melissa McCarthy has played characters who combine competency with craziness, heavily weighted toward the latter.
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