So last night, we rented Bridesmaids. We were already there at the Redbox, it was right there in front of us, and it was supposed to be a hilarious and heartwarming romp, right? It got critical accolades, it got 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes–it should be a laff riot, right?
Holy shit, Batman.
Bridesmaids is easily one of the worst movies I’ve seen this decade. The characters were flat, the plot was contrived, and the pacing was miserable. The movie is what I like to call “emotional slapstick”–if you like watching someone get hit with a beam and knocked down two flights of stairs to land in the street and get pasted by a car, only to sit up and say, “I’m okay!” just as a bus arrives in the background to finish the job, you’ll love Annie’s Rube Goldbergian progression of screwups. I personally found them depressing.
Someone, please, tell me why this movie is funny.
The rest of the (interminably long [excessively parenthetical]) review is hiding behind the jump, partly out of shame but mostly to avoid spoilers, not that the movie can really be spoiled any more than it already is.
THE RUNDOWN (and this plot summary is really long, so feel free to jump down to the high points)
Annie (played pathetically by Kristen Wiig) and Lillian (played cleanly by Maya Rudolph) are best buds in Milwaukee. (This is all you’ll ever know about Lillian, who is never given any backstory or motivation–a walking MacGuffin.) Annie’s life is kind of in the toilet after her bakery failed and her boyfriend left her, and now she’s making booty calls with Ted (Jon Hamm, in a role that manages to make him unattractive) although–shock–she wants a romantic relationship but won’t ask for one and is only pretending to enjoy the no-strings sex. She’s working at a jewelry store (badly, haranguing customers about the miseries of romance) and living with two English fat-person caricatures (to whom she occasionally pays rent). Her friendship with Lillian is basically the only source of happiness in her life. (And for the record, her relationship with Lillian is played, in that first ten minutes or so, so beautifully and warmly that I wanted to cry. It was the high point of the movie.)
Then Lillian tells Annie that she’s gotten engaged to her boyfriend, Doug, resulting in the usual internal panic common to one-dimensional single-gal characters when their friends get engaged. Lillian asks Annie to be her maid of honor, Annie accepts, and this is literally the last good decision she makes throughout the entire movie.
We find ourselves at Lillian’s lavish engagement party, where we’re introduced to the other bridesmaids:
– Rita, Lillian’s cousin, a frustrated sexpot who is married with three kids whom she seems to occasionally despise;
– Becca, Lillian’s friend from work, who is recently married and perpetually happy, which for some reason we’re supposed to see as a bad thing;
– Megan (played gloriously and to the full extent of a shallowly written character by Melissa McCarthy), Lillian’s new sister-in-law and basically a female Chris Farley–because SAG bylaws require that fat actresses only be cast in roles that make them look ridiculous–and who is given the only funny lines in the movie; and
– Helen, the wife of Doug’s boss, who is beautiful and rich and refined and perfect and immediately presented as Annie’s rival.
The party scene features a squabble over the microphone as Annie makes a perfectly acceptable toast as maid of honor, followed by a more effusive toast by Helen, to be repeated way too many times until a painful a cappella duet of “You’ve Got a Friend” leads mercifully to a scene where Annie, driving home, gets pulled over for two dead taillights and is spared a ticket only because the officer, Nathan, used to love her baked goods. (This is not a euphemism.)
After this, everything is painful. Annie takes the bridal party to a seedy Brazilian restaurant for lunch, and everyone ends up with food poisoning. (In her defense, this wasn’t necessarily her fault, as she’d eaten there before without incident.) She brings them to a chi-chi bridal salon but can’t get them in because she didn’t make an appointment (which is SOP for David’s Bridal, much less some fancy, foofy shop). They’re only able to get in because Perfect Helen knows the owner and saves the day. Inside, their dress shopping is interrupted by five rapid-onset cases of gastrointestinal distress (also uncomfortably long), culminating with shots of Megan straining into the sink and Lillian squatting in the middle of the street to shit herself in a designer wedding dress.
Next up: Annie tries to arrange the bachelorette party at Lillian’s parents’ lake house, but Helen suggests Vegas, and because a secluded lake house is a kind of crappy place for a bachelorette party the rest of the party is on board. Despite her fear of flying, Annie’s sense of pride turns down Helen’s offer of an upgrade to first class and ends up sitting in coach, alone, next to a fellow aerophobe. Helen gives her a couple of sedatives to calm her down, followed by a glass of Scotch, because if there’s one thing we know about sedatives it’s that they’re great mixed with alcohol. (Seriously, don’t ever do this. There are no pills in the world that are improved by the addition of alcohol. Don’t eat a Tic-Tac with alcohol.) This, of course, leads to a wacky, uncomfortably lengthy sequence of Annie drunkenly/druggedly trying to sneak her way into first class and ultimately getting tackled by a sky marshal, after which the plane lands in Wyoming and the bridal party is escorted off by the police. (This is lucky, because with that combination of chemicals Annie would more likely have been escorted off by the paramedics.)
On the bus trip home, Lillian gently tells Annie she wants Helen to take over the wedding preparation. This hurts Annie deeply and is not followed by an explanation that after not-getting them in to buy dresses and then getting them kicked off the plane, Annie has demonstrated that she’s not really good at… anything.
Annie calls Nathan, and they hang out, talk, and sleep together, and in the morning he procures for her baking supplies in the hope that she’ll try baking again and be happy. He’s kind of pushy, and she walks out without explanation. She gets fired from her job after getting into a shouting match with a customer. She gets kicked out of her apartment by her roommates and has to move in with her mother.
Bridal shower: Helen has planned another lavish affair, using the Paris theme Annie had originally come up with. This makes Annie mad. Annie’s gift to Lillian is a handmade box of all their childhood memories, which makes Lillian melt. Helen’s gift is a trip to Paris, which make Lillian shriek with joy, which sends Annie into an (uncomfortably lengthy) fit of rage where she yells and storms around trashing the decor and throwing grass in the chocolate fondue fountain. Lillian kicks her out of the party and then follows her outside to kick her out of the wedding.
On the way home from that disaster, Annie gets into a wreck because her taillights are still out, and Nathan responds to the call, finding that a) she still hasn’t, as instructed, gotten her taillights fixed, and b) she’s being picked up by her booty call in his Porsche. On the way home, Ted’s lechery finally becomes too much for her and she gets out of the car and walks home.
She mopes around at her mother’s house until an appearance by Megan, who wrestles her around until she displays “that spark” that apparently Megan always knew was in there. Megan gives Annie a pep talk, inexplicably identifying herself as Annie’s friend. Rejuvenated, Annie bakes Nathan a cake and leaves it on his doorstep and is heartbroken to discover he doesn’t particularly give a shit.
On the day of the wedding, Helen comes to Annie because Lillian has been missing for twelve hours. As they drive to track down Nathan for help, Helen apologizes to Annie and reveals that she’s actually herself insecure and lonely and has no friends and is only invited to weddings because of her skills as a planner (which, as we’ve already seen, are legendary). She cries ugly, and Annie finds her misery awesome and bliss-inducing. When they find Nathan, Annie drives back and forth for an interminable length of time doing increasingly ridiculous stunts until finally she gains his attention by rear-ending his squad car. With his grudging help, they discover that Lillian is hiding out… in her apartment.
Annie goes in and talks to Lillian, who reveals that she’s worried about how life and her friendship with Annie will change after she’s married, and that she’s overwhelmed by Helen’s elaborate planning, and that she wants Annie to be her maid of honor again (because it worked out so well the first time). They make a few last-minute alterations on Lillian’s ridiculous wedding dress and make it to the over-the-top wedding, which features a laser show, fireworks, and a live performance of Lillian’s favorite song by Wilson Phillips.
Afterward, Annie and Helen make up for some reason and hug, and then Nathan shows up (after Helen called him), and they make up for some reason and kiss and drive off into the sunset.
THE HIGH POINTS
– Annie is insecure and neurotic, sleeping with a jerk in the hope of establishing a relationship, completely self-centered, unable to perform her job because of her own insecurities, and unable to consistently pay her rent.
– She has the standard woman-comedy freakout when Lillian announces her engagement.
– She sad-singles her way through the entire engagement party and allows Helen’s appearance to instantly and completely throw her off, leading to the tailspin that causes every problem that follows.
– She almost causes the bridal party to not be able to get dresses due to her lack of preparation, saved only by Helen.
– In her misguided pride, she refuses Helen’s offer of a first-class upgrade and sits in coach without anyone to comfort her through her fear of flying.
– She accepts mystery pills from her nemesis and then drinks alcohol on top of sedatives, resulting in an episode that gets them ejected from the flight to Vegas and a bus trip home.
– Despite finding what she considers to be a good guy in Nathan, she walks out on him without explanation at a slight provocation and refuses to return his calls until he finally gives up.
– She throws a temper tantrum at the bridal shower and destroys everything she can lay hands to.
And yet:
– Megan comes to her house to snap her out of her funk, identifying herself as Annie’s friend despite the fact that during their two-week acquaintance, Annie has focused on nothing but her own insecurities, putting her jealousy of Helen above Lillian’s needs or her relationship with anyone else in the movie. (We’re just going to shorthand that as “Annie’s kind of an asshole.”)
– Helen apologizes to Annie, despite the fact that Annie’s kind of an asshole, and Annie takes pleasure and finds comfort in Helen’s misery.
– Lillian cries to Annie and asks her to be maid of honor again, despite the fact that Annie has had no character development or arc and is exactly the same asshole she was at the beginning of the movie.
– Helen comes to Annie for validation and a hug, despite the fact that Annie has had no character development or arc and is exactly the same asshole she was at the beginning of the movie.
– Nathan comes back for a big kiss and a drive into the sunset, despite the fact that Annie was such an asshole as to offer nothing to get attached to in the first place, much less to come back for.
And also:
– As everything collapses, none of the other characters (Lillian included) ever speak to Helen or Annie about how unpleasant things are getting.
– At the end of the movie, Lillian says that Helen’s plans are over-elaborate and stressful, but she’s never spoken up about anything (and we’re never given enough data about her character to know why that is).
– While Annie perceives Helen as a threat (and Helen is admittedly strong-willed and competitive), Annie herself is actually the one who turns it into a competition by constantly trying for the one-up.
– Whether Helen’s actions were motivated by competitiveness, insecurity, or genuine affection, they got Lillian a lavish engagement party, a fancy wedding gown, a first-class ticket to Vegas, a lavish bridal shower, a trip to Paris, and a live performance of her favorite song by her favorite group, and Annie can’t see past her own jealousy to appreciate that.
– The entire movie was so deeply, deeply shitty that even a cameo by Wilson Phillips couldn’t redeem it.
TO SUMMARIZE
Incompetent woman, bridesmaidzilla, raunchy fat friend, poop, superfluous female characters, random drunken girl-on-girl, insecurity, jealousy, girl fighting, happy ending!
God, somebody tell me why this is a good movie?