Let me tell you a secret: I came this close to sneaking a flask of the hard stuff into my showing of Bridesmaids. Who could blame me? Not only was I tasked with seeing a film that, from the trailers looked like a derivative all-chick imitation of The Hangover, but I (perennially a bridesmaid) also chose to see it with two of my favorite soon-to-be-wed gal pals. In the end, sobriety prevailed. And so did this surprisingly hilarious un-chick flick.
We first meet Annie (Saturday Night Live’s Kristen Wiig) being used as little more than a sexual prop by her jerk with benefits, Ted (Jon Hamm, playing an over-the-top cad). When the self-centered sleaze demands that Annie “cup my balls,” it’s clear that he’s A-OK with having a much better time than she does and that she’s just putting up with as little as she think she deserves. It’s also immediately clear that Bridesmaids is intent on earning its R rating. The opening credits had scarcely stopped rolling.
Annie is a charming and attractive 30-something, equipped with Kristen Wiig’s myriad facial expressions and deadpan delivery. But she’s going through a rough patch. She had owned a bakery in her native Milwaukee that went belly-up when the economy went south. Along with her dream job went her life savings, her boyfriend, and ostensibly her self-esteem. She now lives in a two-bedroom apartment with a creepy brother-sister duo (Matt Lucas and Rebel Wilson) who read her diary and accepts tattoos from strange men out of the back of a van.
So losing her lifelong best friend, Lillian (SNL castmate Maya Rudolph), to a wealthy but nice fellow named Doug and his equally wealthy but not-so-nice circle of friends is the last thing that Annie needs. But that’s exactly what she feels is happening when she meets Helen (Rose Byrne), the perfectly coiffed and ball-gown-in-the-daytime-wearing wife of Dougie’s boss.
Lillian enlists Annie to be her maid of honor, a job whose antiquated and expensive rituals Annie is hardly suited for. It’s also a job that Helen desperately wants to steal away. The bridal party includes Lillian’s newlywed co-worker Becca (Elie Kemper) who is in love with love and all things Disney, her desperate housewife cousin Rita (Wendy McLendon-Covey) and her scene-stealing, filter-lacking sister-in-law-to-be Megan (Melissa McCarthy).
What follows in this Judd Apatow-produced (I know. He does like girls!), Paul Feig-directed comedy is a blend of side-splitting one-upmanship, inconvenient bowel movements and drug-induced honesty, wrapped around a feel-good gooey center of friendship. Wiig co-wrote the script for Bridesmaids with fellow Groundling comedy troupe performer Annie Mumolo, who makes a brief onscreen appearance as Wiig’s nervous seatmate on a flight to Las Vegas. The ladies do a fine job of proving that, yes, women are funny. (See also: Tina Fey.) There were moments that I missed out on the latter half of a scene’s lines of dialogue because I was too busy laughing at the first few lines. When this didn’t happen, I was impressed at Mumolo and Wiig’s ability to escalate the humor in a scene and avoid the sketch-comedy pitfall of beating a dead horse.
Unlike many of her fellow SNL alums, Wiig also wisely resists the urge to turn a two-minute sketch into a painful two-hour movie. Fans of the comedienne will certainly recognize many of her trademark passive-aggressive whispered asides and her too-sunny grin. But she deftly manages to pull these together into a legitimate character that actually resembles a real-life person. Sometimes she’s pathetic, as when she and Helen engage in a game of competitive bridesmaids toasts. Sometimes she’s embarrassing, as when she overdoses on sleeping pills and scotch and has an awkward confrontation with a male flight attendant in first class. And sometimes she eats bad Brazilian barbecue, gets food poisoning and tries not to lose her, um, gastrointestinal composure in a very upscale bridal salon.
No doubt, that’s a scene that will be talked about all year as one of the funniest in any of this summer’s movies. Normally, I take a pass on scatological humor, but there was just something about the sight of Rudolph in a giant confection of white puffy tulle and lace squatting in the middle of a crowded Milwaukee street and literally losing it. There has been no shortage of poop scenes in movies in the last couple of years–from Death at a Funeral to The Back Up Plan and even the original Sex and the City movie. This one is much more subversive (the message: overblown weddings are a crock of shit) and exponentially funnier than any of those.
Even though Annie does find a worthy love interest in an Irish-accented state trooper named Rhodes (irresistibly cuddly Chris O’Dowd), this is definitely not a romantic comedy. The real love here, as with all the best Apatow comedies, is of the same-sex variety. And still, it’s not a chick-flick either. Even with a soundtrack that includes Fiona Apple, Hole, Wilson Phillips and the most bizarrely girly cover of “Blister in the Sun” ever, Bridesmaids is able to find a uniquely feminine point of view that never plays the victim or gets overly sentimental. And that is definitely worth drinking to.