BRIDESMAIDS

Bridesmaids (2011)
Grade: D
Starring: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Chris O'Dowd, Rose Byrne, Melissa McCarthy, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ellie Kemper, and Jon Hamm
PREMISE: A middle-aged woman's social and romantic lives go into tailspins when her best friend gets engaged and names her the Maid of Honor.

RATED R for strong language (including graphic sexual references), and graphic sexual content

GAH!!! I so badly wanted to like Bridesmaids. It's a coarse, sharp-edged comedy driven by an animated, fearless star (Kristen Wiig, who also co-wrote), and it has more tricks up its sleeve than about 90 percent of raunchy comedies these days. It's also-on many an occasion-laugh-out-loud funny. But, it's also relentless, and it follows around a character who makes all the worst decisions-and becomes nails-on-a-chalkboard annoying-stumbling from funny and original to borderline-unwatchable as it gets wilder and wilder.

Annie (Wiig) would never say her life is perfect. Her dream-opening and running a bakery-fell through because she didn't have enough money. She's single, and her only "romantic" escapades are bedroom romps with a ridiculously-horny douche bag (Jon Hamm) who couldn't make it plainer that all she is to him is an instrument of pleasure. She shares an apartment with a pair of lazy British shlubs (Rebel Wilson and Matt Lucas), one of whom never pays any rent, yet she's too proud to accept the invitations of her single mother to move in with her. Her only real happiness in life comes from her lifelong friend Jillian (Maya Rudolph), an earthy, gentle soul who is over the moon when her fiancee's sudden distance turns out to be a byproduct of the diamond ring burning a hole in his pocket. No sooner does Annie graciously accept Jillian's request to be her Maid of Honor than her life becomes increasingly unpredictable. That's because Jillian's wedding is already all but directly-financed by her fiancee's boss's gab-and-glam-loving wife Helen (Rose Byrne), and her fellow bridesmaids consist of a sweet but super-naive newlywed (Ellie Kemper), a bored housewife who lives to fulfill her starved sexual fantasies (Wendi McLendon-Covey), and the groom's sister, a dumpy, foulmouthed eccentric (Melissa McCarthy, in the female incarnation of the Zac Galifianakis role from The Hangover).

The fur starts flying immediately, when Annie is upstaged at the engagement party by the sickly-sweet Helen, who has only known Jillian for a few months, but is a take-charge, alpha sort with both money and connections. Following an extremely uncomfortable scene-where Annie and Helen give dueling speeches/compliments to the bride-to-be, each trying to one-up the other, a furious Annie is pulled over by a police officer (Chris O'Dowd) who has fond memories of the cakes she used to serve--fond enough that they get her out of a ticket for having bad tail lights. The cop is genuinely nice-as a few subsequent run-ins prove-but Annie's life is soon consumed by the battle she's losing to Helen--the battle to win Jillian's approval by planning the perfect wedding. A recommendation to a little Brazillian diner on a bridesmaids outing turns out to be a disaster, her idea to have the wedding shower at Jillian's parents' lake house is offed by Helen's contrary offer of a trip to Vegas, and Annie's attempts to get Jillian to notice the wedding's rapidly-inflating budget ($900 dollar bridesmaid dresses; a custom bride's dress ordered straight from a designer in Paris) fall on deaf ears, as her friend becomes increasingly starry-eyed at the prospect of a storybook wedding. Naturally, Annie's rising tension sends her life into a tailspin, where her every move seems to be the wrong one.

Yes, it's a comedy--an often funny one. McCarthy is a scream as the unglamorous, edgy bridesmaid who suggests a Fight Club theme for a bachelorette party ("Jillian comes in-right?-and we all beat the s*** out of her!"), and offers to show an alarmed fellow plane passenger that iPods can, indeed, be hidden in one's nether regions. She's got an Oscar nomination for this performance, and deserves it, despite a few late, unnecessary touches. If you remember anything from Bridesmaids, it'll be her. Bridesmaids also deserves praise for its fearlessness, its utter daring, personified largely by the endlessly-energetic Wiig, but Annie's tailspin is just too much. While it's easy to imagine that the impending marriage of a close friend could rock a person's world, Annie is revealed to not only be stressed, but also shown to be, simply, an appallingly self-centered, obnoxious individual.

Wiig works hard, and she's incredibly expressive, but she does become irritatingly shrill as the plot unfolds. You want to smack her repeatedly by the 75-minute mark, and the film in its totality is 125 minutes long. You know you're meant to hate Byrne as soon as she comes onscreen, gussied up and smiling, but with a slightly demonic gleam in her eye, and the normally-reserved actress plays her kind but competitive princess well. However an attempt to redeem her character late falls flat due to the mania surrounding it. O'Dowd deserves serious credit for allowing one to exale whenever he's featured in a scene-it means nothing ridiculous is about to happen-but in his last scene, he succumbs to a glob of uncharacteristic schmaltz. But McLendon-Covey and Hamm come off like bad curdled milk with a pair of unappealing, oversexed characters that barely seem like real people. And Rudolph, as the bride-to-be, is more a plot device than a person.

Maybe you can tell my problem with Bridesmaids. I really wanted to like it, and I laughed a lot, but its unrelenting determination to go as over-the-top as it can (yes, Helen proves pretty intense when it comes to planning the wedding, but having the bride's favorite band appear, after the vows, to perform her favorite song? Really? How about giving out live puppies as bachelorette party favors? Perhaps a little too much?) bogged me down. Soon, Wiig's performance is as subtle and likeable as being hit over the head with a frying pan, and Hamm's last scene is so over-the-top sexist that it left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

So, do I recommend it?
If coarseness doesn't bother you, and you're with your girlfriends (or friends who just don't care) then have at it. May you laugh shrilly. I know a lot of people love this sort of movie. But, the film is loud, crude, and, at times, mean-spirited. It also promotes a blatant selfishness that's impossible to like-late in the film, Annie goes on a tantrum that supposed to be understandable and funny but drags on into the outright maniacal. The dialogue is extremely profane, with many references to private parts (male and female), and the movie features a few sex scenes, the longest and most uncomfortably-intimate of which is the very first scene.

Bottom line (I promise):
Bridesmaids is funny but depressingly juvenile. It's not for kids. It's not for the faint of heart. It's not for those who like to think of movie-making as an art form. Groups of girlfriends may love it, and it should give nearly every viewer a chuckle or two, but its shrieky and overdramatic happenings are headache-inducing.

Bridesmaids (2011)
Directed by Paul Feig
Written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo
Rated R for strong language (including graphic sexual references) and scenes of sexuality
Length: 125 minutes