The producers of Bridesmaids have openly invited comparisons with 2009 hit The Hangover and they've appeared keen to promote the idea that Bridesmaids is a more worthy successor to The Hangover's legacy than The Hangover 2 which is also in the cinemas at the moment. What's less clear is whether Bridesmaids was originally conceived as an attempt to demonstrate that women are as capable as men when it comes to this form of comedy or whether this is an entirely market-driven conceit.
In practice, the comparison doesn't really apply. It's highly misleading to bracket this film with its anarchic forbear because the differences between The Hangover and Bridesmaids are far more significant than the similarities. The biggest distinction lies in the level of plausibility. Films don't have to be plausible but they do have to establish a level of plausibility and remain true to it. The Hangover wasn't at all plausible but it didn't really ask the audience to believe that it was. No matter how wild your night in Vegas, the idea of waking to find Mike Tyson's tiger in your bathroom is inherently absurd and The Hangover set out its stall with this gambit very early on. Its comic momentum is sustained by keeping its events at this level and none of its significant events were believable.
Bridesmaids, on the other hand, shifts wildly between a poignant study of a woman's panic as she realises her life has drifted off course and the broad comedy that's come to be known as 'gross-out'. These two elements sit as uneasily alongside one another as a plump lamb and a hungry lion.
The main protagonist is Annie (Kristen Wiig) who is on the brink of a premature mid-life crisis brought on by failure in every area of her life. Only her friendship with old school-friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) offers any solace from her shitty life and when Lillian accepts a proposal of marriage, all of Annie's dissatisfactions are suddenly brought into focus as never before.
The extent of these dark revelations is magnified by Lillian's decision to ask Annie to be her maid of honour. Anyone who's seen the trailer for this film knows this much. They also know that various mishaps of the kind seen in The Hangover unfold as Annie proves uncommonly ill-equipped for the role she's assigned. Based on the trailer, you might suppose that this sequence initiates a momentum that lasts until the end of the film but that really doesn't happen. Instead the outrageous episodes of Bridesmaids punctuate the film like the lapses of a high-functioning alcoholic who hasn't quite conquered his addiction to binge drinking.
The underlying story is a pretty conventional romantic comedy (or romcom to use the revealingly dismissive abbreviation) concerning the unbelievable amount of time it takes for a dim woman to realise that the nice guy who treats her decently is a better relationship bet than the dickhead who's messing her about.
Despite the best efforts of Chris O'Dowd as Nathan Rhodes – the policeman who takes a shine to Annie and tries to show her the meaning of love – this turns out to be a remarkable thin premise. The playboy character has been drawn with such broad strokes that he should have been represented by an animated stick man. Instead he's played by Mad Men's Jon Hamm who imbues the character with such shallowness that he's entirely one-dimensional.
Adding to these competing demands on the audience's attention is a sub-plot involving Lillian's new best friend Helen. Immediately jealous of one another for no good reason, Annie and Helen's attempts to outdo each other contribute hugely to the wedding-related disasters that unfold but their overblown feuding is a complete contrivance and only adds to the tonal shifts that undermine the film's coherence.
Helen (Rose Byrne) may be the film's biggest problem. Byrne doesn't really convince as Little Miss Perfect and Annie's jealousy of her would have worked much better if Helen has been genuinely sweet. Instead it's plain for anyone to see that she's manipulative and controlling and it's actually ridiculous that Lillian wouldn't be aware of her true nature. Helen's step-sons are... in a scene that demonstrated that the editorial priority was laughs rather than coherence, one of the two lads tells Helen to “fuck off” when she tries to use them to further her claim to be the perfect wife.
As was the case in The Hangover, the most outrageous comedy is provided by an overweight character with a disarming lack of self-awareness. In Bridesmaids this role is taken by Melissa McCarthy who bases her performance completely upon the template established by Zach Galifianakis in The Hangover. Her part hums with so much obviousness that her only hope is to play the role with enough gusto to make the crassness appear ironic. Sadly, this renders her performance into a realm of unfunny self-parody which has the added problem of making it utterly infeasible when her character is charged with the responsibility of shaking Annie out of her funk.
This film is less than the sum of its parts and its parts aren't all that. The roaming nature of the narrative and the gag-oriented editorial policy leaves a lot of loose ends. Not that any discerning film-goer would regret the neglect of these... at two hours and five minutes Bridesmaids is already quite long enough thank-you very much.
One loose end merits a bit more attention though as it appears to illustrate the editorial laxness of this film. It involves a gag that's set-up when Officer Rhodes hands Annie the name and phone number of someone who can fix her tail lights. The name of the mechanic in question is Bill Cozby and when Annie notes the similarity to a certain veteran comedy actor, Rhodes tells her that his friend hates it when people point this out and she's not to say anything about it.
This is so clearly a set-up that more astute members of the audience will find themselves speculating about the pay-off. Perhaps, they might think, 'Bill Cozby' will be played by Bill Cosby and Annie will be unable to refrain from mentioning how much the mechanic looks like the comedian. Or perhaps the writers and producers of Bridesmaids had something else in mind.
Whatever it was, we don't get to find out. When Annie gets her tail lights fixed, no mention is made of the mechanic's near namesake and the set-up is left hanging. What happened? Did they try to get Cosby and fail? Or was some other pay-off abandoned? Was it then too late to re-shoot the scene in which the gag is set-up?
It's a small lapse but a strange one and it's indicative of a lack of follow-through that plagues the film. Mind you, that particular phrase brings to mind the scene that seems set to become the film's most notorious moment... a food-poisoning based mishap that brings a whole new meaning to the phrase 'bridal shower'. There's certainly no lack of 'follow-through' in this sequence even though it's relatively modest in its grossness thanks to the conveniently long dresses.
Is the idea of women performing comedy of this order supposed to be subversive? If Bridesmaids had wanted to be genuinely subversive, why didn't it challenge the idea that women are so in thrall to the prospect of a big wedding that they'll surrender every freedom delivered to them by the feminist movement and reduce themselves to the level of pathetic simpering wretches? That would be far more radical than seeing a woman shit herself in the street... even if she is wearing an expensive bridal gown.
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