The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) review

In her youthful days, Tammy Faye (Jessica Chastain) became fascinated with the idea of "being saved by God" - this was after seeing her parents attend church where there was a lot of wailing and moaning - so, as an adult, she went to North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, met (and fell in love with) Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield) and the two of them became evangelical preachers ... and when they started going on Pat Robertson's The 700 Club, the money rolled in.  It's clear from the beginning that Showalter (who's also a comedian) holds almost all of these people in deep contempt (and perhaps rightfully so) but (wrongly) gives Tammy Faye something of a "pass" since she was an early supporter of the LGBTQ+ community and clearly not in her right mind, chasing Ativan with Diet Coke and caking on the makeup to the point where her face became a subject of ridicule (encouraged, it seems, by her allegedly closeted husband) - sure, she was robbing people and hiding behind the Cloak of God, but she had deep feelings, y'all!  Mocking super-religious types is just way too easy (they're already a joke), but what I'm consistently baffled by is America's continued fascination with charlatans: I want to believe we're smarter than that ... but apparently we aren't.