Bridesmaids

I have never really liked RomComs. I've always found them to be slightly dull, poorly acted and predictable. I find myself sitting there watching the likes of Jennifer Aniston fumbling her way through her love life and thinking “no-one's life is like that.” But maybe that's the point. Maybe that's what I'm missing – a RomCom is a chance on a Sunday night for an overweight 30 something to wallow in her own self-pity and escape from the fact that Mr Right just hasn't arrived in her life yet (but don't worry girls, he will...eventually). It was with this mindset that I went to watch Bridesmaids, the post-feminist answer to The Hangover. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised.

From the beginning, it was clear that the film was not going to break any narrative conventions or be especially radical with its treatment of women in society. The film follows the life of Annie (Kristen Wiig) who, disillusioned with life after the failure of her cupcake shop, is asked to be the maid of honour at her best friend's wedding. However, things are complicated when Annie meets the other bridesmaids, including Helen (Rose Byrne), who soon becomes her main rival in vying for the top spot in organising the wedding. The story plays itself out with few major surprises and along the way does do what a good comedy should do: make you laugh. The strong performance from Kristen Wiig helped greatly in this and, whilst I only found myself laughing uncontrollably in one or two sequences (namely on board the aeroplane), pretty much every scene contained several nuggets of strong comedy. Even though about 70% of the humour was fairly crude, there were humorous moments which shone through and lifted this film up several levels from the obscene level of humour seen in The Hangover: Part II.

I felt the direction was strong and individual performances (especially from the very funny Melissa McCarthy as Megan) helped to keep the audience involved with the plot. I was rather surprised at the number of male audience members at the screening I went to and, for once, it seemed as though it was not simply boyfriends earning brownie points with their better halves. An indication of a broadening of the RomCom market? Maybe not...

Apart, perhaps, from the dress-fitting sequence, Bridesmaids shows that a modern comedy about a group of women getting together to organise a wedding does not have to lower itself to the depths of offensiveness and vulgarity that The Hangover: Part II demonstrated in such spectacular fashion earlier in the year. Whilst I do appreciate that the two films focus on completely different situations (the stereotypical image of a lad's stag/bachelor party and female wedding preparations) they are, by definition, linked. What the Hangover failed to do, in my opinion, was to rise above the sexist, homophobic, racist and misogynistic jokes in favour of a sharper humour which was not purely based upon drug-dealing monkeys and lady-boy prostitutes. Although Bridesmaids was by no means a social realist film, it at least attempted to address topics such as changing friendships and the empowerment of the modern woman in society. All in all, Bridesmaids is a solid comedy with glimpses of real comic wit, leagues above the lads in Bangkok. 

Clapper Rating: * * * *