Ty Warner was a frustrated toy salesman until his collaboration with three women grew his idea into the biggest toy craze in history.

My memory of Beanie Babies (from a UK perspective) is of small cuddly toys that were extremely popular with little girls like my sister in the late 1990s and perhaps early 2000s, before, like most toys, being overtaken by the latest fad or gadget that came along. My recollection is partly true although as ‘The Beanie Bubble’ outlines, their popularity at its peak was way beyond anything I’d remembered. Following on from ‘Air’ and ‘Tetris’ earlier this year, ‘The Beanie Bubble’ is another movie about how a company built something popular from the ground up, with all the challenges and dramas that entails – only in the case of ‘The Beanie Bubble’ there doesn’t appear to be too many challenges until the bubble eventually popped.

The story is told through the perspectives of three woman who played important roles in the growth of ‘Ty Inc’, the organization ran by Ty Warner (Zach Galifianakis) that produced these cuddly toys. Firstly we have Robbie (Elizabeth Banks), Ty’s original business partner (and later real life partner), who forms the company with him before gradually realizing Ty’s focus is squarely on him. We then have Sheila (Sarah Snook), a single mother who forms a relationship with Ty and also starts to gradually realise that Ty only cares about one thing. Finally, there’s Maya (Geraldine Viswanathan), a talented employee at Ty Inc who is paid a pittance despite being responsible for much of the strategy that drove the initial success of the Beanie Babies. They all have different viewpoints into the Beanie Babies craze, with Ty’s controlling CEO at its centre.

The film adopts a time jumping narrative going between the early 80s when Ty and Robbie came up with the idea for the company, through the 90s and success to the inevitable fall at the end of the decade. To a degree that feels like tinkering for tinkerings sake and made it a bit tougher to follow than necessary, but I did enjoy this quite a lot, finding it to be a compelling business boom and bust story with good performances (Viswanathan a standout) and a good balance between comedy and drama. My understanding is it may have taken quite a few liberties with its true life story (other than Ty, everyone else is playing a composite character, which perhaps explains a lot), but as a soapy, Sunday afternoon piece of light entertainment, ‘The Beanie Bubble’ worked quite well for me.

Rating: 4/5

Directed By: Kristin Gore & Damian Kulash

Starring: Zach Galifianakis, Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Snook and Geraldine Viswanathan

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt17007120/