Movies and TV have enjoyed a fertile run of rise-and-fall business stories, from Theranos to WeWork to Chippendales. Add to that list "The Beanie Bubble," a nostalgia-infused look back at the plush-toy craze that swept America, turned collectors into "investors" and abruptly went as flat as a doll with the stuffing knocked out of it.
Serving notice from the get-go that the Apple TV+ movie takes considerable liberties with its truth-based underpinnings (culled from a book by Zac Bissonnette), the film is told from the perspectives of three women connected to Ty Warner, the founder of the company behind Beanie Babies, played by a near-unrecognizable Zach Galifianakis (of "The Hangover" renown) in a pretty jarringly straight dramatic role.
Jumping back and forth in time in the 1980s and '90s, that trio consists of Robbie (Elizabeth Banks), who helped Warner, then a struggling toy salesman, launch the business; Maya (Geraldine Viswanathan), whose savvy about the then-nascent Internet and auction sites like eBay helped him grow it by creating demand; and Sheila ("Succession's" Sarah Snook), a single mom to two girls who became involved with Warner, only to see him reveal a darker side after the great lengths to which he went in wooing her.
The narrative structure actually recalls "The Bad and the Beautiful," the classic 1952 Hollywood tale about a producer who changed the lives of three people who passed through his orbit, here with a more feminist bent. Yet all of that is steeped in the improbable rise of Beanie Babies as a must-have item -- turning them into "little plush Lotto tickets" -- bidding up what became a billion-dollar enterprise during the Clinton years before just as quickly going kaput.
The Clinton connection seems an especially apt point of reference, since the movie is written by Kristin Gore ("Saturday Night Live," "Futurama"), the daughter of former Vice President Al Gore, who co-directed with her husband, musician Damian Kulash, Jr., in their feature directing debut. Gore places the story very much in that historical moment, but also wisely expands the lens to provide a not-so-subtle commentary about the enduring obsession with the Next Big Thing.
Apple TV+ recently tackled similar terrain with the movie "Tetris," not to be confused with another project that followed a rags-to-riches-to-rags arc with roots in that era, "Blackberry."
Despite its satirical tone, "The Beanie Bubble" largely plays things pretty straight -- indeed, a little too straight, when a bit more humor and whimsy would have helped -- with Galifianakis portraying Warner as the kind of self-absorbed, ruthless narcissist who'll say anything to get what he wants (or really, needs) without necessarily possessing the savvy or discipline to hold onto it.
As noted, "The Beanie Bubble" is merely the latest addition to what's been a boom time for such stories. When it comes to combining nostalgic pop-culture staples with the content-hungry appetites of the streaming age, that bubble, at least, has shown no signs that it's going to burst.
"The Beanie Bubble" premieres July 28 on Apple TV+. (Disclosure: Lowry's wife works for a division of Apple.)
