Drawn out

Rating: 6/10 (29 May 2012)

Bridesmaids seems to have been so acclaimed mainly because it's not as bad as you might expect. It's often compared to The Hangover and not without reason, but the one area in which The Hangover truly excelled which made it stand out, is where Bridesmaids fails miserably - pacing. Each gag is drawn out over painfully long periods of time, and the movie is 40 minutes too long. It almost makes sense when you realize that the two leads are SNL graduates.
That's not to say Bridesmaids doesn't deserve some credit. A comedy with an all-female lead cast is rare enough, and the movie has the unusual distinction of being a comedy directed at women that isn't a romantic comedy - in fact it's anything but, though it comes close at one point - and along the way breaks a lot of conventions about what a 'chick flick' should be, including some scenes of no holds barred gross-out comedy, of a kind that would fit right in with a male cast, but feels strangely disturbing with the female cast (and what does that say about our perceptions of gender?). Those are the moments where the movie is truly funny; and although the humor is low, in many ways it feels fresh, and as a comedy - in the big picture - it works and is memorable.
When there's actual plot, though, it feels like the characters keep talking long after we got the point. Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph and Rose Byrne all play characters of varying levels of unlikability and it's hard to care about any of them. The saving graces are Melissa McCarthy - the movie's only likable character, for me - Jon Hamm and Jill Clayburgh, whose scenes are shorter, funnier and more to the point than anything else. When Wiig and Byrne are bickering on screen, though, it's tough to remember why we have to root for either one.