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Bridesmaids
| Released |
22 June 2011 |
| Director |
Paul Feig |
Starring
|
Kristen Wiig, Rose Byrne, Maya Rudolph, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Melissa McCarthy, Ellie Kemper, Chris O'Dowd, Jon Hamm |
| Writer(s) |
Kristen Wiig, Annie Mumelo |
Producer(s)
|
Judd Apatow, Barry Mendel, Clayton Townsend |
| Origin |
United States |
| Running Time |
125 minutes |
| Genre |
Comedy |
| Rating |
16 |
|
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A bridal party.
Once girls leave movie high-school they become almost invisible in mainstream comedies, occasionally popping up as bikini fillers or disapproving harpies. A female-led comedy is rare and a female ensemble piece even rarer. This fact alone makes Bridesmaids remarkable but it is the type of comedy it favours that makes it really stand out as something different. The comic set pieces hurtle headlong down paths usually reserved for male-driven comedy and its cast are not afraid of looking extremely unladylike while doing so. It’s all a world away from the Sex and the City rubbish usually churned out for the female audience.
The story centres on Annie (Kristen Wiig, who also co-wrote the script with Annie Mumolo). She has reached a low point in her life with a failed business behind her, money troubles threatening a move back in with her mother and a thoroughly dysfunctional relationship with the attractive but boorish Ted (Mad Men’s Jon Hamm). Her problems are compounded when her life-long friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) gets engaged and asks Annie to be her Maid of Honour. She fails at nearly every task and clashes with the all too perfect bridesmaid, Helen (Rose Byrne).
The fact that this is a female oriented storyline may put off some of the male audience but it shouldn’t; at the end of the day Bridesmaids is a very funny film. At its heart, Kristen Wiig’s performance marks her out as one of the best comedy talents working today. She throws herself into her performance as the shambolic Annie, revealing herself to be a fine physical comedian. The cast around her (including The IT Crowd’s Chris O’Dowd as an unlikely but charming romantic interest) are uniformly excellent and have believable chemistry. Director Paul Feig includes improvised scenes for real warmth, while the scatological scene in which the girls get a nasty case of food poisoning rivals anything The Hangover could throw at us for gross out humour.
It’s a little disappointing that a film which plays with the expectations of how women are supposed to act simultaneously hammers home the point that at the end of the day, they still need a good man to rescue them. A shame. But I enjoyed the film so much I can’t be too mad at it; it brings some much needed female-led anarchy to a thematic area that is usually all sweetness and light.
Linda O’Brien |
