After sitting down and mulling over Bridesmaids, easily the best comedy so far this year with a star-making performance from its writer Kristen Wiig, I got to wondering just why this female ensemble of funny girls, dressed in couture, and talking about love, life and sex worked, when their New York neighbours failed so spectacularly, and twice, to carry over small screen critical success to the cinema? It’s because Bridesmaids, for all its projectile vomiting and food poisoning incontinence, is clever. It’s a brilliantly funny script that speaks volumes on the petty nature of competition and jealousy, on the value of deep-rooted friendship and connects better with a generation who can believe the self-destructive flaws of a woman who’s life post-boom means a dead-end job and moving back in with her mother. Sex and the City 2, on the other hand, had its star walk down a private beach in Dubai while her Indian servant carried a parasol.
Bridesmaids is the story of Annie (Kristen Wiig), and her attempt be the perfect maid of honour to friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph), but whose efforts are hampered by circumstance, her own self-destructive tendencies and a fierce rivalry with other bridesmaid Helen, a wealthy society wife played by Rose Byrne, who knows she can do a better job. There will be an itinerary of events to plan and enjoy, from dress shopping to the bachelorette party in Vegas, but will Annie be able to cope with the financial and emotional strain of the wedding while she tries to piece her life back together after the foreclosure of her bakery business in downtown Milwaukee?
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| Rumour that the in-flight movie was The Hangover Part II was not being well received |
Wiig and co-writer Annie Mumolo, who cameos as Annie’s equally fearful fellow passenger on the film’s standout flight to Vegas sequence, score big laughs right from the beginning, and have produced a script that offers believable characters just the right side of ridiculous. The performers too, with tight direction from Paul Feig, spark easily off each other with the sort of repartee that makes you wish you were actually friends with them, because then you’d get to be that funny too. Byrne, with a brilliant zoom-out introduction that perfectly establishes her character, is pitch perfect as the bitchy Helen, whose constant one-upmanship, and its inevitable third-act resolution, is the driving force behind most of Wiig’s best writing and acting. Melissa McCarthy, graduating from the twee world of the Gilmores, lets loose as the brazen Megan, sister of the groom, and gets loose with any man interested.
But without a doubt, the film belongs to Wiig, whose performance as Annie is a master-class in comedic acting. Everything, from the awkward faces she pulls through to the rib-tickling dance moves and the very timbre of her voice will make you laugh and snort in equal measure. It’s the kind of performance, so perfect for the tone of the film, that deserves the attention of awards voters, but this being comedy, and gross out comedy at that, Wiig will have to console herself to watching Kristen Stewart claim the 2012 MTV Movie Award Best Female Performance for Twilight instead.
Not everything works, the film’s length being needlessly long, and two of the bridesmaids get a bit of a raw deal with their screen time. The romantic subplot, involving Ireland’s own it-man Chris O’Dowd as the distinctly un-hibernian sounding Officer Nathan Rhodes, is predictable, but likeable in itself, yet seems a bit superfluous to the main plot. But when the complaints for a film are that it’s too much of a good thing, you know you’re on to something special.
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