Forget the hype describing Bridesmaids as The Hangover with girls. It isn’t. It has a plot, emotions, and cake, for starters…but this is really a movie about a woman having a breakdown.
Kristen Wiig plays Annie, a recently bankrupt cake maker whose childhood best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) has just got engaged. Although she’s asked to be Lillian’s maid of honour the stunning and wealthy Helen is clearly vying for the spot of MoH and BFF. Hilarity, as they say, ensues. It’s an uncomfortable, cringey series of episodes and in many ways is far more reminiscent of Mean Girls than The Hangover. You feel bad for Annie, but kind of just wish everyone would just quit with the teenage bullshit. Other than a memorable scene with actual shit. People will like that. All of this runs alongside most of Annie’s life spiralled out of control, which culminated with a very funny breakdown at the bridal shower.
As is often the case with these sort of films, the supporting characters get to be funny while the main characters are busy moving the plot forward. The normally perky Melissa McCarthy is uglied up almost beyond recognition as the gruff, butch Megan, and gets the broadest laughs by far whether she’s crapping in a sink in a bridesmaid's dress or stealing a pack of puppies. Ellie Kemper basically walks right off the set of ‘The Office’ where she plays cheerful-and-naïve Erin, to play cheerful-and-naïve Becca. It’s a shtick that’s very funny on ‘The Office’ and is just as funny here. She made an excellent foil for the dry, under-sexed Wendi McLendon-Covey. Sometimes supporting characters are best-left in the background, but I would have liked to see more of the entire bridal party ensemble rather than the occasional glimpse.
The standout of the entire film, however, is not the wedding pre-nuptials, but the romantic side-plot between Annie and traffic cop Nathan, played by Chris O’Dowd manlier than you have ever seen him in anything before (which is, of course, a low bar to set). I had more of an emotional connection to this plotline, but it was also the most charming. Kristen Wiig was far funnier here alternatively charming or batting away Chris O’Dowd’s character than having a breakdown the rest of the time. Considering the film was book-ended by Annie’s romantic life anyway, and these were some of the most charming and engaging parts, I walked out of the cinema wishing the film had been a romantic comedy with the backdrop of a pending wedding rather than the other way around.
With all of the comparisons to that other film with Ed Helms in it I kept expecting surreal adventures with big laughs to kick off, but it never quite happened: although the bachelorette party goes to Vegas, we never get off the plane, for example. Being a part of the Judd Apatow super-machine, I understand the link between the films while also giving it a strong marketing angle. But it created a false expectation and set people up to judge very harshly, or at least it did for me.
Overall, there were some genuinely funny scenes and the whole thing was broadly enjoyable. It was great to see actual female comedians rather than actresses being cast, and so many of the funny roles written for women (Wiig co-wrote the entire venture, by the way). But had it simply been promoted as a funny movie rather than a funny movie you already like, but with girls it would have been a more impressive venture.
Bridesmaids is in cinemas now
Andrea Miller
