![]() ![]() During one of their frequent splits, he becomes enamored with Sheila ( Succession’s Sarah Snook), and most importantly, her two young daughters, who become his window to the children’s market he wants to dominate. It’s a successful partnership, but a volatile one, as Ty courts a string of lovers while continually taking credit for all of Robbie’s smart marketing moves. As portrayed here, they are analogs of actual women who helped steer the Beanie Baby phenomenon, but assigned fictional names and, we can only assume, some narrative liberties.įirst up is Robbie (Elizabeth Banks), a former car garage mechanic who, through a chance encounter with the then-struggling toy entrepreneur, helps focus his attention toward creating floppy stuffed animals, then takes the financial reins, tending to the minutiae of commerce while Ty concentrates on creating cuddly characters. Still, as the film’s prologue insists, this is the story not of Ty, but of the three women who made his plush empire possible. With oversized eyeglasses, a combed-back mane of hair and a face betraying the unintended consequences of too much cosmetic surgery, Galifianakis’s Ty is a bundle of flamboyant insecurity a guy who at first blush seems as cuddly as Patti the Platypus ($10 on eBay) but who in the end has more sharp edges than Megatron. Zack Galifianakis stars as Ty Warner, the “Ty” whose company name appears on all 2,000-plus Beanie styles ever created. And while the narrative structure formulated by a first-time feature-making team at times seems as squishy as Lucky the Ladybug (currently $200 on eBay), a fine cast creates a gallery of fully realized and often compelling characters. The Beanie Bubble, a lightly fictionalized take on the rise and fall of the Beanie phenomenon, taps into that manic movie tradition. Unbridled obsession has always made for good - and great - cinema, from Phantom of the Opera through Citizen Kane all the way to Fatal Attraction and beyond. Likewise, eBay would still be with us even without the early boost it got from those insanely motivated Beanie Baby collectors, who once drove the bidding for a button-eyed Bubbles the Fish Beanie up to $129,000. ![]() Of course, it’s a sure bet that direct-to-consumer websites would have conquered the Internet even if the Beanie Babies hadn’t gotten there first. In Theaters now Streaming on Apple+ July 28īigger than Cabbage Patch Kids and more ubiquitous than the Hula-Hoop, Beanie Babies were not just a 1990s toy craze: Those adorable, bean-filled critters with names like Sorbet the Rabbit and Knuckles the Pig raised social and economic waves that ripple to this very day. Stars: Zach Galifianakis, Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Snook, Geraldine Viswanathan ![]()
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