Review: Bridesmaids

Kristen Wiig’s lifelong bestie Maya Rudolph is getting married, and as Maid of Honour, Wiig wants to give her the best celebration ever. Unfortunately, Rudolph has recently become friendly with Rose Byrne, which proves a threat not only to Wiig’s celebratory plans for Rudolph, but their relationship itself. A rather sad game of one-up(wo)manship between insecure Wiig and wealthy, type-A personality Byrne begins. Meanwhile, Wiig has other problems. She lives with two fat, lazy Brits (Matt Lucas and Rebel Wilson) who invade her privacy. Her bakery went kaput. And she recently ended her shallow relationship with stud Jon Hamm. She has become interested in nice guy Irish cop Chris O’Dowd, but with everything else going on, she inadvertently starts to neglect him. Melissa McCarthy, Ellie Kemper, and Wendi McLendon-Covey play the other bridesmaids, Jill Clayburgh makes her last film appearance as Wiig’s mother, and Franklyn Ajaye is Rudolph’s dad.

Directed by Paul Feig (who comes from a background on TV shows like “Arrested Development” and “The Office”), produced by Judd Apatow (of “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and “Superbad” fame), but more importantly the brainchild of writers Kristen Wiig (who also stars) and Annie Mumolo, this 2011 comedy has been seen by many as the female version of “The Hangover”. Is that meant to be a good thing, though? The good news is that unlike “The Hangover”, I laughed more than once here. The bad news is, I didn’t laugh consistently, and the film is hit-and-miss overall, not to mention way overlong. And just because girls can appear in a gross-out comedy, doesn’t mean they necessarily should or need to.

I’m absolutely appalled that this film garnered Oscar noms for Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress (Melissa McCarthy), because the characters are underwritten (especially the supporting cast) and often overplayed (especially the two leads). They’re also largely unlikeable (especially the two leads). Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph (daughter of the late Minnie Ripperton, of ‘Loving You’ infamy) give off the vibe of being very comfortable around one another, but for me it was less the characters being lifelong friends and more the actresses being long-time peers and admirers of each other’s talents. “SNL” alum both, their performances here don’t really convince as real characters so much as they give off “SNL”-sketch quality performances (Rudolph in particular is so amateurish that she ruins even the dramatic scenes). That’s simply not good enough for a film that runs over two hours, especially when there’s not much depth in the screenplay backing them up. Wiig’s funniest moment involves a toast/speech that turns into a desperate and pathetic game of one-upwomanship between Wiig and Rose Byrne, before finally reaching its hilarious height involving a rendition of ‘That’s What Friends Are For’. But neither Wiig nor Rudolph’s characters are actually all that sympathetic. The former is self-absorbed and frankly pathetic (her drunk act on a plane is stupid and embarrassing, not funny), and the latter is often insensitive (and poops in a wedding dress, I might add). I mean, who allows someone they barely know (Byrne) to take over the job of organiser that Rudolph’s supposed lifelong BFF, Wiig clearly wanted? Why would she allow Byrne into the Bridal Party at all? I don’t care who she’s related to, it just didn’t seem believable to me, let alone make Rudolph sympathetic. TV actress McCarthy is certainly memorable, but as much as she is largely responsible for some of the biggest laughs in the film (gross as those gags may be, like the food poisoning scene), she’s in some of the least funny moments too. A little of her goes a long, long way because funny or not, the character is pretty disgusting and unpleasant to have around. Aussie Rose Byrne, meanwhile, is pretty good in a fairly stock-standard role. She’s definitely got charisma and good looks, but this role isn’t going to do much for her, really.

As for the other two bridesmaids played by Ellie Kemper and Wendi McLendon-Covey...well, they have one character between them. McLendon-Covey plays the cynical, middle-aged housewife and mother, but I have no idea what character trait Kemper was meant to have, she was just kinda ‘there’. Clearly Wiig, Mumolo, and director Feig couldn’t give a crap about anyone else in the film, instead let’s just throw in a supposedly wacky (i.e. Completely unfunny) sex scene for Wiig and Don Draper. Fine, then why not delete these extraneous characters altogether? Or better yet, put more focus into making the leads likeable and realistic. The film is already overpopulated and undernourished as it is. Irish actor Chris O’Dowd is as likeable as ever as the romantic interest of the film, in fact he’s the most likeable presence in the entire film and the least caricatured. Speaking of caricatured, I can’t say I’m even remotely a fan of Matt Lucas or Aussie comedienne Rebel Wilson, but playing stereotypical fat, lazy poms here, they’re more peculiar than funny. They’re both pretty well-known and respected comics (not by me, though), so I think a lot of their fans will be disappointed with how tiny and pointless their roles are. And why is the multi-talented Franklyn Ajaye given almost nothing to do as Rudolph’s cheap dad? Huge waste there.

I get that that this film isn’t for me. I’m sure lots of women will love singing along to the (fucking terrible) Wilson Phillips song over the end credits (The band actually appear earlier in the film too). Good for you. Have fun with it, even if I find it somewhat odd that women really want to see a gross-out film made for them (It was pretty popular in cinemas, presumably with women). Perhaps the gross-out stuff added to a normal chick flick scenario was meant to combine to create the perfect date movie. I dunno. I just found the film seriously uneven in the humour department, underwhelming and unpleasant in the character department, and not much better in terms of story or originality. There are moments, but not enough to make it anything more than watchable for me. I guess Wiig just isn’t Tina Fey. This film’s not very good, but it’s a step up from “The Hangover”.

Rating: C+