First rate

Rating: 10/10 (24 June 2011)

Bridesmaids is ostensibly a comedy about the mishaps of a group of bridesmaids aiming for a hen party outing to Las Vegas and, as a result, it invites direct comparison with the unexpected hit The Hangover of a couple of years ago. It even features a moderate amount of crude and scatological humour, and an outrageous exaggerated group member, thus making the leaning towards comparison even stronger.
In fact, the areas of comparison are fairly superficial. Bridesmaids is a much better film, and I say this as someone who thoroughly enjoyed The Hangover.
As a male viewer of mature years, I watched Bridesmaids in a cinema where the audience was predominantly women of an age where they have met a) various of life's disappointments and b) the selfishnesses which men can sometimes demonstrate. This film made them laugh a lot, and I enjoyed the experience of seeing it in the company of such an audience. It made me laugh, too, perhaps not with the outrageous belly laughs of The Hangover, but with knowing laughter almost all the way through. There is a scatological sequence which rivals Dumb and Dumber for funniest diarrhoea sequence ever (I can't believe I just typed that) but, for me, this was outdone by a sequence on a plane which was beautifully judged and hilarious.
Bad language is an area I often complain about - there was a moderate amount of swearing here, some of it particularly ripe, but I have no complaints because - take note, screenwriters - it was all dramatically justified and served a purpose: none of it was gratuitously inserted simply because it is trendy to fill a film with bad language.
The cast was excellent, with Rose Byrne brilliantly playing - but not overplaying - a character who is far from easy to like. And kudos to Melissa McCarthy for creating a character who is funny and fat, not funny because she is fat. And, notwithstanding the exaggerated nature of her character, she is believable (I am contrasting this with Zack Galifianakis in The Hangover - funny, but I didn't believe he was a real person for a second).
That's at the heart of why I liked Bridesmaids so much - it is an honest film. The characters are real, their motivations and feelings are real, and even though the events may be tipped slightly over the edge, I could believe in these people and feel for them.
Finally, I must single out Kristen Wiig, playing the central character and co-writing. I'm not familiar with her US TV work, but I've seen her in a number of films (most recently Paul) and quite liked her. Let me say this about her performance in Bridesmaids: if this performance had taken 15 minutes of screen time and had been in a serious movie, she would be looking at a Best Supporting Actress nomination: she is that good here. However, she is on screen all the way through, in a broad and sometimes coarse comedy, so she doesn't stand a chance of a nomination, and it is a great pity. Her performance is subtle, full of light and shade, emotional, real - oh, and very, very funny.