The Bronze (2015)

Them Duplass boys are at it again (best if read in Waylon Jennings voice).

Another film that lost money for no reason. It was a low-brow(ish) comedy that never pretended to be anything it wasn’t.

Melissa Rauch plays an Olympian from Ohio who got the bronze and then broke her ankle or something. Anyway she was done competing and is now desperately clinging to her local celebrity status. She is unhappy and extremely spoiled by her father Gary Cole.

You may know him from Office Space but check out American Gothic sometime, a short-lived television series where this guy was really terrifying.

But back to our failed champion; she’s foul-mouthed, acerbic and will bang anyone that gives her a little attention. She steals cash out of birthday cards she finds in her father’s mail truck and drinks like a fish. It’s safe to say she has some issues with fulfillment on multiple levels.

She eats for free at lots of places around town because of her celebrity and she has only one friend in the world that she refers to as Twitchy because he’s sort of weak and has an eye twitch.

Enter Haley Lu Richardson (Split, Edge of Seventeen) as the bubbly ingénue gymnastic marvel on the rise. She’s cute, talented, innocent, and a virgin. None of these qualities appeal to old Bronzey.

Cole tells Bronzey that her former coach has died and has not only left her the gym she owned, but she will inherit half a million dollars if she trains little Haley to compete.

Motivated by everything but the right thing, Bronzey starts training the kid. At first, Bronzey is cruel to the kid, making her eat junk food and encouraging her to hook up with her current boyfriend. The new kid was already a talent but soon she morphs into a true athlete. She goes on to win a couple of qualifying matches and the word is out. There’s a new player in the game. Enter the Winter Soldier.

Sebastian Stan shows up being good-looking, muscly, and arrogant. The Winter Soldier was formerly on the same Olympic team as Bronzey and apparently they were like rabbits. One thing that separated them was that he got Gold and leveraged that into an Olympic coaching/training empire. Apparently he lost interest in Bronzey along the way but now he’s back and he wants her protégé in his stable.

But Bronzey is determined to get that money and fights for her. Later Twitchy mentions that the gym will soon be closing up because there is no money to keep it open. Bronzey tracks down her father, confronts him, and he admits to making up the whole inheritance story to make her act like an adult and think of someone else for a change.

She goes to a bar, runs into the Winter Soldier, proceeds to get drunk and ends up having some gymnastic sex with him in her room with the curtain open. Yeah, it’s a lot. To top it off, Twitchy, who had recently expressed his feelings for Bronzey, witnesses the whole thing from the parking lot. Twitchy is heart-broken.

Reluctantly Bronzey helps the new girl to win gold. New girl then abandons Bronzey to be coached by the Winter Soldier in Los Angeles.

Bronzey returns home alone and heart-broken, makes up with Twitchy and finds a line outside of the gym. Kids want to be trained by her! The day is saved.

As a bonus new girl gets knocked up by Winter Soldier and can’t compete. He then dumps her.