One Liner Review:
In the spirit of the hangover, except slightly more civilized, this is a very funny movie about a group of women and their disastrous interactions surrounding a wedding.
Brief Review:
REVIEW:
Bridesmaids is a pretty great comedy. It’s smart and witty and it gets even funnier with every new viewing. That’s probably because it just has so much going on. Take the main character, Annie, played by Kristin Wiig, for example. Not only do we spend time with her as she meets and tip-toes around a relationship with a new guy (a very funny cop), but we also meet the man she casually sleeps with, who has no problem being a jerk to her and being honest and blunt about it (played by John Hamm). And the movie isn’t even about her and her romantic endeavors.
It’s about her as a bridesmaid to her best friend, Lilian (Maya Rudolph). More specifically it’s about her and a bunch of other women who are all young and attractive and ready to let loose on the world. There is vulgarity and a carefree attitude going for this movie and it is absolutely great. It’s not cursing or toilet humor just for the sake of it, but more like smart observations about sexual things. Just look at the way the movie opens with Annie and Hamm sleeping with each other, trying out different positions, and all of them being awkward, uncomfortable looking, and extremely funny.
After that, we meet Lilian as she and Annie are in a coffee shop after their little workout in the park. And they’re talking about Annie’s night with ham and how among other things she ended up going down on him. At this point the women start discussing sexual acts and what guys must think of them. They talk about why guys do the things they do when it comes to that and Annie even does a few very funny impressions.
This is Judd Apatow material. He didn’t direct the movie, but he certainly had his hand in it as a producer. As it happens, most of his funnier movies are the ones he produces. I hated funny people, for example, but Superbad was absolutely hilarious. Bridesmaids has the same gutsy, unafraid to be vulgar, approach as that movie. Only it’s with women.
The storyline is very funny too. It’s about Annie being not only in a state where her own life is kind of falling apart (the guy she’s seeing, the job, the roommates), but also having a real problem with the bridesmaid situation. On the one hand, she’s kind of jealous of her friend getting married. But even more, she’s jealous of the woman who is pretending she is Lilian’s best friend, Helen, played by Rose Byrne.
Helen is like the newer, younger model that is always the enemy in CG animated movies. Whether it’s The Incredibles, despicable me, or Megamind, the villain is always the new kid in town who casts the old hero aside as if he’s nothing. That’s Helen in this movie. She does everything to the max; only she’s not authentic and real about any of it. It’s all just surface and superficial and none of it has any meaning. Annie feels like she is the only who notices this and is willing to call Helen out on it.
The scene where Helen and Annie first butt heads is really their first time meeting each other. It’s at Lilian’s engagement party. Annie gets up to make a speech about the couple and Helen grabs the microphone to make one right after her. Then Annie takes the microphone back to add to her speech and then Helen takes it right back from her. This goes back and forth for a while, and sometimes it’s very funny (Annie speaking Spanish words that don’t really mean anything in relation to what she’s trying to say), and sometimes it goes a little too far, (singing “that’s what friends are for”). Still, the rivalry has begun and it’s got an ugly path ahead of it, filled with humorous bumps.
That path includes the results of a Brazilian restaurant that makes all of the girls sick, to the point of having some pretty nasty mishaps. It also includes an airplane situation where Annie gets hammered and causes a massive disturbance on the plane. And what I love about that scene is that it’s not all about Annie. We hang out with the other girls on the plane too, each involved in their own thing. Melissa McCarthy, playing the groom’s sister, Melissa, is the funniest character in the movie. Her repertoire with the air marshal, about how a person could keep a gun in their ass, is absolutely brilliant. It’s taking the pulp fiction watch story to the next level.
After the plane disaster, there’s a wedding shower that goes horribly wrong, and the next thing you know, the bride and her maid of honor are in a major fight. Just when you need to get away from the girls and everything that’s going on with the whole bunch of them, there’s the story of john Hamm and the cop, the two men in Helen’s life, coming right back, at the perfect time. The cop is an excellent character, very witty in his remarks “we’re not all bad. I’m the best of ‘em.” and Annie’s problems with him are really problems she has with herself. The baking situation that he does as a nice gesture turns into a bit of a meltdown and is actually her issue, and not his.
The reason why bridesmaids works is because it has so much going for it. When Annie isn’t with the other women of the wedding party, she’s with one of the two guys she’s seeing. And when she’s not with one of them, she’s either at her job making very strange and awkward comments to the customers, or with her roommates watching their bizarre behavior toward each other. This movie has it all. It really explains Annie’s life, and how everything she does or has to deal with is just incredibly ridiculous. The movie doesn’t waste a single scene, and finds humor in everything. Every scene of Annie at work is funny. Every scene with her and her roommates is funny. And the stuff between her and the men or her life, and also of her and the other bridesmaids, are just hilarious. I’m not a fan of chick flicks and I’m glad to say that bridesmaids is not one of them at all. It’s more like a male comedy. It really does feel like Superbad meets the hangover with a touch of wedding crashers splashed in. all great movies, and bridesmaids belongs right beside them. Mainly it’s good because it’s well-written and smart and very funny.