'Bridesmaids' - NOT Your Average Chick Flick

"Bridesmaids" has "chick flick" written all over it, so many (including me) were not too eager to rush out and see it. But this is not your average "chick flick," and it will appeal to a wider audience more than its title might suggest. There's nothing groundbreaking about "Bridesmaids" and it does resemble a typical formulaic comedy, but the laughs do come fast and many of them are gut busters. But moreover, it has a lot of heart and makes you care about the characters very much. That's always the key to a really good comedy.



Kristin Wiig, one of the big stars at the moment on "Saturday Night Live" and who co-wrote the script with Annie Mumolo, stars as Annie Walker, a woman whose cake shop went bankrupt and who's having sex with Ted (an uncredited John Hamm) who sees her as nothing more than a fuck buddy. Then she finds out that her best friend since childhood Lillian (SNL vet Maya Rudolph) has gotten engaged, and she asks Annie to be her maid of honor. From there, you know things are going to go south between these two. I mean, do you know of anyone who had an easy time leading up to a wedding? I sure as hell don't!



Complications arise almost immediately when Annie meets Lillian's other BFF Helen Harris (Rose Byrne), a beautiful and wealthy woman who seems to have everything together. The resentment and insecurity between these two is evident on their faces after their first encounter. This is made all the more clear when both toast Lillian and then try to top each other in showering their love on her, trying to be her bestest friend on Earth.



Things get even more complicated when Lillian selects the rest of her maids of honor. They include Becca (Ellie Kemper) who loves wedding and pities Annie because she is yet to have hers, Megan (Melissa McCarthy) who is as aggressive as they come, and Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey) who may very well be the unhappiest wife and mother on the face of the Earth and the most consistently drunk of the bunch. With all these different personalities in the same space, will the road to the wedding be a happy one? Is Arnold Schwarzenegger the world's most faithful husband?



What I really liked about "Bridesmaids" is the same thing I loved about "Knocked Up;" the characters in this film are very down to earth and easy to relate to. Being that Judd Apatow is a producer on both these movies, this should have been obvious from the start. These are real people with real problems that are not far removed from our own, and we come to care deeply about each and every character here. It doesn't matter if none of you men have ever been a bride's maid, being grooms men is enough qualification to understand the headaches in planning matrimony.



This is also a movie where facial expressions at times speak more loudly than words. "Bridesmaids" does have a lot of great dialogue, but the looks on these actresses faces is what really cracked me up. They say one thing, but by looking into their eyes you can tell what's really on their mind. This goes for the men in as well, and they all seem to pale in comparison to the females in terms of inner strength. We see right through each character, and the tension resulting from a possible slip of the tongue is always in the air.



"Bridesmaids" is the true breakout movie for Kristin Wiig. When I've seen her in other movies, she always seems to be doing a riff on her most deadpan characters from "Saturday Night Live" whether it's in "Knocked Up" or "MacGruber." But as Annie Walker, she really inhabits the character and gives her life in a way many of us haven't seen her do previously. She's not just doing one of her characters from SNL in a full length feature film. Kristin makes us embrace Annie as a kindred spirit because we've all felt the way she feels; lost in the world and feeling betrayed by it, and desperately trying to hold on to what means the most to us.



Maya Rudolph is equally wonderful here as the bride to be. She already showed us in Sam Mendes' "Away We Go" what a great actress she is, and she vividly reminds us of our best friends from childhood. She runs a gamut of emotions as things start off wonderfully and then eventually turn into an unmitigated disaster. In a pivotal scene in which she's about to leave her apartment for the last time, Maya shows us a worry and concern that we all see within ourselves from time to time. She never once portrays Lillian as being your usual clich©d character, and that says a lot about her acting.



Of all the bride's maids in "Bridesmaids," the one who stands out the most is Melissa McCarthy as Megan. Overweight and raunchy whenever she wants to be, Melissa is a comedic powerhouse when the camera is on her. Seducing airplane passengers and showing no shame in what she is, she makes Megan a strong woman character and never digresses into making her a cloyingly sentimental one.



Rose Byrne proves to be a delight as Helen, and her beautiful face and eyes can't quite mask the growing resentment she has towards Annie. This character could have easily turned into your typical one-dimensional villainess, but by the end we discover that she and Annie are not all that different. Rose makes you like Helen despite her overly meddling ways.



The movie was directed by Paul Feig, Mr. Eugene Pool from "Sabrina, The Teenage Witch" and the creator of "Freaks and Greeks;" a brilliant show that like many other brilliant shows only lasted one season. With "Bridesmaids," he manages to find humor even in these character's most painful moments, and he never makes the comedy too overly broad. Some scenes are broadly played, but Feig remembers that the comedy can only work if you truly care about the characters. We laugh not so much at the jokes as we do at the situations and how we've been in (or luckily avoided) them in our own lives.



"Bridesmaids" is one of the best comedies to be released in 2011, and no man out there should dismiss it as a chick flick. The audience for this one has proven to be more diverse than its promotion may have suggested. Plus you have Kristin Wiig and Maya Rudolph on display here, and they always kick ass! If you liked them on "Saturday Night Live," then you are bound to love them here.



* * * ½ out of * * * *



Note: "Bridesmaids" marked the very last screen performance of actress Jill Clayburgh who passed away in November 2010 from leukemia. She is a wonderful presence here as Annie's mother. RIP Jill, you will be missed.



See also:



Knocked Up



Away We Go