BRIDESMAIDS

DON’T BE FOOLED BY THE POSTER – THS IS NOT A CRAPPY KATHERINE HEIGL COMEDY: IT’S ACTUALLY GOOD

Review by: Yumi

I was really glad when I heard Richard Wilkins had been on Channel 9 telling people not to go see Snowtown and giving it zero stars because it made me feel good.  There's a reason why he's there.  It's so that I know what not to do.

(Mind you, I can't always trust my own judgment.  It's a running gag in my office at the moment to give me shit for recommending Something Borrowed - a crappy rom-com with Kate Hudson and Ginnifer Goodwin.  I liked it because it stars John Krasinski and I always thought he would make an interesting and attentive sexual partner; he'd also listen to you talking about your problems & shit.  I also liked it because it talks about when a young woman finally grows up and puts herself first, and learns to put partying and dumbass friends second.  I get that, I been there. I MAY HAVE also been mental with hormones that day!  Maybe... like the day I saw The Proposal with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, two of my least favourite Hollywood stars, and cried and got goosebumps and fully immersed in the story, not because it was good but because I was actually feeling like Britney Spears the day she decorated the bonnet of a car with an umbrella.)

So it pleases me greatly to see large tracts of film critics have missed the point of the new Judd Apatow comedy 'Bridesmaids', a rich comedy which, at first, positively reeks of chick flick.

What is a chick flick?

Here are some key ingredients of a chick flick:

1.  Glossy production values.

2.  Mid-range Hollywood stars.  eg., Angelina Jolie doesn't do chick flick; she's top-knotch, she's an Hermes handbag.  Mid-range, say, a Marc by Marc Jacobs clutch, is Katherine Heigl or Isla Fisher, or 15 years ago, Meg Ryan and Andie McDowell.

3.  Handsome but not too handsome, slightly goofy object of desire.  Current Model: Patrick Dempsy.  Slightly Dated Model: Colin Firth.  Old Model:  Hugh Grant.

4.  Predictable plot that centres on a woman's dilemmas, mostly to do with

a). female friendships,

b). a mother or mother figure and

c).  a romance, which will be resolved, but not til the second-last scene, where it will all be stitched up with a kiss, usually shot from a crane on a rainy street.

5.  A happy ending.  Yey!

Bridesmaids contains all of said ingredients.  It even has the word "brides" in the title, which, everyone knows, is the domain of the woman.  And let it be said that the poster art totally makes this look like a comedy for chicks and their homo guy besties.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

The story centres around Kristen Wiig’s Annie struggling to deal with the impending marriage of her best friend. If Annie were already married and in a great job, the implications of this wedding would be less about loss and jealousy, but poor Annie is stuck in dead-end work and the only romantic entanglement she enjoys is one with Mad Men’s John Hamm.  Naturally, he is a womaniser and a scumbag interested in soulless sport sex and humiliating, horrible honesty.  Their excruciating opening scene sets the tone for the level of pain, embarrassment - and laughs - Annie will go through in the next two hours.

Annie is understandably jealous of her best friend’s accomplishments while her own life seems so crappy, but adding to her sense of devastation and powerlessness is something new; another bridesmaid, Helen (Rose Byrne) who is competing for the affections of the bride. 

This is what I used to think I would look like if I got married:


And this is more what I would probably look like in 2011 and is what I wore to work when we had to talk about the Royal Wedding last month:

Top 5 Reasons I Will Never Get Married

1.       I don’t like asparagus vol-au-vents

2.      Lace curtain dresses don’t match Asian skin

3.      No one ever asks me, assholes!

4.      If gay people don’t have to, why should I?

5.      New Idea haven’t offered me money for the exclusive rights, assholes!

The way this film will work is if people chuck out the notion that this is a film for girls.  It's a film that women will LOVE but men will too, particularly the type of men I adore; men who actually like women.

5 STARS

SUMMARY: A comedy about the pain of not growing up while your best friend does. An anti-Katherine Heigl comedy for smart people and one of the truly great films of 2011

WHO SHOULD SEE IT?  Everyone!  It's awesome!  Take someone you love because you'll leave with a glow and you'll want to talk about it for weeks.

RELEASE DATE: Advance screenings this weekend. Release date 16 June