Banana Scoop

Hollywood has described this as summer’s biggest sleeper hit.  R rated comedies don’t normally do well compared to their competition due to their fairly closely targeted audience, but good word of mouth has recently allowed R rated comedies like The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and the Hangover to do well.  The thing that sets Bridesmaid’s  apart from its fellow R rated box office hits lies in its leads.  The all female cast, which normally would’ve targeted only female audiences, was able to set itself apart from ‘chick flick’ status to appeal to a broader demographic, something not commonly seen.  With clever writing, chemistry between it’s leads, and a cast of outrageous supporting characters, it’s these aspects of this movie that saves itself from falling to formula and instead becoming potentially summer’s best comedy.

Annie (Kristen Wiig) and Lillian (Maya Rudolph) are childhood best friends that seem inseparable.  When Lillian gets engaged, Annie gets put in the position as maid of honor, where means she has to plan parties and dinners for her best friend.  It’s at this moment when Annie’s personal life turns for the worse when she loses her job, gets kicked out of her apartment, moves in with her mom, and has to compete for her best friend status with Lillian’s other friend, Helen (Rose Byrne), who clearly does a better job as being a maid of honor.

It's easy to tell they're actually friends, the acting is so natural

The story follows a typical pre-wedding story-line, cycling through bridal showers, bachelorette parties, etc. but the accompanying slapstick is far more clever and humorous than the slapstick involved with other wedding movies like Maid of Honor or Bride Wars.  Much thanks to the Kristen Wiig’s humorously awkward Annie and her supporting players, most notably, Melissa McCarthy’s raw and unrestrained Megan, who plays the brother of the groom, the film is filled moments that will have your slide splitting no matter what gender you may be.   Their antics are cleverly written and the clearly improvised dialogue make each moment that should be cliche, actually enjoyable.  And while the ending itself is fairly cliche and predictable,  it’s such an enjoyable romp getting to that point, it doesn’t actually matter.

This is a clever gal

The reason it’s okay to forsake the cliche plot is because this movie isn’t story driven, it’s character driven.  The characters are so much more memorable that the story itself and that’s where Bridesmaids shines the most.  Even the movie’s ‘antagonists: Byrne’s Helen and Wiig’s on-again-off-again f*** buddy (Jon Hamm) are delightfully hilarious in their own way.  But like I stated earlier, the focus here is the main cast.  Normally giving off the aura of a chick flick, Wiig’s dynamite [Oscar worthy?  Oh heavens, if only, but no way the Academy will recognize…] performance and the support of her fellow cast mates are able to create something that goes beyond a normal wedding movie and which contributes to something the Rottentomatoes called ‘genuine’.  When a movie is able to produce characters so relatable, the term genuine is a good word to describe a strong connection between the movie characters and the audience, which in this case is impressive, because the entire main cast is female.  This genuinity is easily tranlsated to both genders, and while I’d imagine the first demographic of this film was likely females, good word of mouth expanded it to the box office hit it is today.

It’s easy to tell the actors themselves had a good time improvising with each, trying to find the funniest line or wait for the best timing and you can feel the ‘genuinity’ in the chemistry between the characters.  I highly recommend you pick this one up and watch it.  You absolutely won’t regret it.  And while you’re at it, watch Melissa McCarthy’s job as hosting SNL, because she’s been the most memorable SNL host in a long time.

4.5/5 Stars