After a string of interesting but fairly anonymous supporting roles, Saturday Night Live alumnus Kristen Wiig has made a spectacular transition to lead actress on the big screen with Bridesmaids, a raucous comedy with a title that will have unbeknownst males dragged along to the cinema expecting the worst. Acting as both star and co-screenwriter, Wiig taps into the insecurities of women approaching middle age, still rudderless and battling to nail down their own identities.
She plays Annie, a thirty-something with a failed business venture behind her who is content to sleep around with men like the narcissistic Ted (Jon Hamm) who view her as another notch on their belt. Her rental situation with an eccentric brother and sister (Matt Lucas and Rebel Wilson) is causing her angst, but then the only alternative is moving back in with her slightly nutty mother (Jill Clayburgh), a final solution she would like to avoid.
The thing that sustains Annie is her life-long friendship with Lillian (Maya Rudolph), but now Lillian is getting hitched. Annie’s separation anxiety and the added annoyance of Lillian‘s absurdly wealthy, stuck-up new best friend Helen (Rose Byrne) into the mix only exacerbates her feelings of losing touch with her one constant in life.
A tug of war for affections begins, sparking an insanely intense rivalry one rapidly progressing to hatred, and which has severe negative ramifications for Annie. In trying to draw Lillian closer and re-emphasise their bond, she succeeds only in pushing her further away.
Elsewhere Annie begins a tentative relationship of sorts with a police officer (Chris O’Dowd) who pulled her over for a minor infringement but fondly recalls her failed bakery for its delicious deeds of the past. Could this be her shining knight in armour, the remedy for a succession of arseholes?
Her wonderful screenwriting contribution aside, Wiig’s performance itself is a comedic tour-de-force. There’s a young Meg Ryan like quirkiness to the physical side of her emotionally brave, uninhibited work here. Beyond the natural progression of gross-out gags (fitting considering producer Judd Apatow’s name has been unreasonably highlighted in the film’s promotion), space is also provided to ground Annie as a real person riddled with relatable foibles.
The set-pieces Wiig and co-writer Annie Mumolo have concocted are inspired for their outrageous excesses and seemingly ad-libbed asides. Most memorable perhaps is the repercussions from an Annie directed but ill-fated detour to a restaurant which is meant to outshine Helen and show her up for being out of touch. It all goes awry when it turns out the group, except Helen, have suffered food-poisoning. The rapid onset of sickness arrives just as the girls are trying on wedding outfits in a posh store. Hilarity and the unloosening of bowels ensue in the most inappropriate manner but it’s a gut-buster from start to finish.
Then there’s an episode in a plane when Annie becomes inebriated and lets her inhibitions out of the closet. Providing an unforgettable assist to Wiig is the outlandish, hilarious work of Melissa McCarthy as Megan, Lillian’s future sister-in-law.
I fully admit to being a sceptic about this film. In the title I spied a reason to believe another lame chick flick was in the offering. But Bridesmaids (2011) is the funniest comedy to emerge out of Hollywood in recent times. Though the supporting players all contribute heavily to the mayhem, this is Wiig’s film.
I say:
The comedic surprise packet of the year.
See it for:
Wiig, Wiig and Wiig again. She’s utterly brilliant.
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