Top 5 Things Wrong with "Bridesmaids"

Rating: 3/10 (17 March 2012)

5. Formula chick-flick, but with the frat-boy flourishes that women like Kristin Wiig and Amy Schumer have latched onto, apparently because they think feminism means imitating men. By the time all the gossiping and self-pitying and puking and, yes, diarrhea scenes are over, every one of the six female characters gets, or already has, her man. Happy endings go with comedies, of course, but writer Wiig seems incapable of adding anything surprising or original. The movie is a series of skits.
4. Cheap laughs, and not many of them. Insult humor goes after Lesbians, the fat, the aging, and-- in a movie about women-- ordinary women ("You look like an old mop," "You're an old, single loser"). Instead of laughs, expect stammering à la Woody Allen, cursing à la Judd Apatow (he's a producer on this), and one-liners that depend mostly on four-letter body functions. Attempts at physical comedy fail-- e.g., Annie attacking a giant cookie-- because director Feig, cinematographer Yeoman, and editors Kerr and Sale don't know how to capture or control motion on camera for comic effect.
3. Oldest plot in Hollywood, which is, of course, de rigueur for romantic comedies: Girl meets boy, they flirt, fall in love/hit the sack (depending on the era), and then she storms out on him in a trumped-up fit so that we get a few mad-at-each-other scenes before the inevitable reunion can be staged with the inevitable sentiment and wisecracks. The familiarity and predictability of the plot isn't a problem if the details are fresh. There is nothing fresh here. In fact, the same old plot even applies to Annie's relationship with the mandatory rich bitch Helen (Rose Byrne): they hug at the end.
2. Comedies don't need fully realized characters the way dramas do, but they still need characters. These women are ideas, and thin ones at that. Their mascara has more depth than their roles. Only Melissa McCarthy stands out, and not just for playing the butch girl. With her exceptional timing and bold presence, she is so much better than her fellow actresses that she actually becomes the comic relief in a comedy-- which says all you need to know about this movie, as a matter of fact. In spite of her grotesque role, McCarthy is enjoyable, except during her big pull- yourself-together scene with Annie, which bears similarities to, but is less plausible than, The Exorcist.
1. In a movie about women, the most interesting character, and the only charming one, the only one I'd care to meet in real life, is a man, Officer Rhodes (Chris O'Doud).
It's pitiful, really, Wiig's lack of originality, let alone ambition. There were scenes that, if they had been tweaked with any wit or thoughtful insight, could have turned this into a satire. A statement about rampant consumerism was waiting to be made when the women were defecating in and vomiting over the $800 dresses they're expected to buy. The shallow understanding of foreign cultures could have been exploited in the ridiculous French-themed bridal shower. Megan's intervention with Annie could have exposed the idiocy of instant cures for personality disorders. But satire requires sophistication and distance and these filmmakers have neither. They are not about to make any trenchant observations about the culture they're exploiting for skit-level comedy. To Apatow et. al.'s credit, they do seem to know they're still at the potty-mouth level of maturity, so they stay close to the toilet, where they're obviously comfortable and so, it would seem, is a lot of their audience. As I write, the box office gross is closing in on $300 million worldwide.