Bridesmaids (*½)
Directed by: Paul Feig
Starring: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Melissa McCarthy,
Wendi McLendon-Covey, Chris O’Dowd, Ellie Kemper, Jill Claybourgh, Matt Lucas,
Rebel Wilson, Jon Hamm
Seen: July 1st 2011
*½
Out of ****
Bridesmaids is The Hangover movies for girls. It shows that women can
be as crass and experience the same level of ridiculousness as men, but does it
all in a way that’s far more boring. Where the Hangover movies had a sense of
plot advancement, Bridesmaids plods along hoping everything will eventually
fall in place. Where the Hangover had relatively high stakes for those involved,
the realisation of Bridesmaids’ worst fears would not be catastrophic for any
one of the characters at all. And I didn’t even like The Hangover movies at
all, which doesn’t say much for Bridesmaids.
Bridesmaids starts with Annie (Wiig) engaged in “extramural”
activities with her occasional sex-call friend, the self-absorbed Ted (Hamm),
an awkward scene to start off any movie, and this one also outlasts its welcome
almost before it starts. Annie and Lillian (Rudolph) are best friends living in
Milwaukee, close to Annie’s now closed shop, Cake Baby, which failed miserably
during the recession. When Lillian becomes engaged to a character the movie
basically assigns to the sidelines she asks Annie to be her maid of honour, and
at the engagement party Annie gets to meet the rest of the bridesmaids: there’s
Lillian’s shockingly “honest” cousin Rita (McLendon-Covey); the sweet and
innocent Becca (Kemper); Lillian’s very unashamed and loudmouthed future sister
in law Megan (McCarthy); and Helen (Byrne), the beautiful wife of Lillian’s fiancée’s
boss, with whom Annie immediately starts competing for Lillian’s best-friend
status.
As expected, anything Annie does falls flat on its face or doesn’t
come close to comparing with what Helen does or can do for Lillian. Annie grows
gradually more frustrated, a situation not helped by everything popping up in
her life. Her uncomfortably odd housemates, brother and sister Gill (Lucas) and
Brynn (Wilson), who still had her pay half the rent even though they’re three
sharing the apartment, kick Annie out and she moves back in with her mom. She‘s
stopped for broken tail-lights and is also involved in an accident at a later
stage, where Officer Rhodes keeps showing up, the two developing a
rollercoaster relationship in spite of Annie’s selfish and/or self-defensive
whims.
It all comes to a boiling point, as Annie loses her temper at Helen
while attending the elaborate (and based on an idea stolen from Annie) bridal
shower arranged for Lillian, Lillian throws her out, and bans her from the
wedding too. Annie has hit bottom, and in it she has some things to discover
regarding friendship, relationships and professional work ethic on her way to reconciling
with Lillian.
The humour is flat, the entire plot contains too many small elements insufficiently
answered resulting in the whole effort ending up in the cinematic mud of
boredom. Singular moments of good humour can’t keep the movie afloat, and the
fact that the protagonist is only marginally likeable in a few scenes doesn’t
improve things at all. This movie, even though it would like you to think it’s
about friendship and its deep residing power, is about little more than a very
bitter and childish fight between two supposedly grown up women to be BFF to
a limp supporting character.
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