Bridesmaids

[lety]

Annie (Kristen Wiig) is leading a very unsatisfactory life. She's been forced into a low-paying job she hates after her cake shop goes out of business. She's living with a creepy pair of siblings who rifle through her personal items while she's out. And, she's having sex with a handsome man (Jon Hamm, playfully playing against type) whose idea of celebrating post-coital bliss is to kick her out of the bed - and his house - as quickly as possible after they're finished. But it's not as though she feels incomplete because she's not in a relationship, it's just that Annie is at that stage where nothing seems to be going her way.

At the opposite end of the happiness scale is Lillian (Maya Rudolph). Lillian's just become engaged to a successful businessman and she wants Annie, her BFF, to be her maid of honor. Annie immediately says yes, because there's no way she wants to disappoint her lifelong friend. However, Lillian's new friends - in particular Helen (Rose Byrne), the scheming wife of her future husband's business partner - expect more than Annie and her limited budget and limited organizing abilities can deliver. Helen is everything Annie isn't and doesn't mind throwing that fact in Annie's face at every opportunity. She's beautiful, rich, and extremely catty, and she wants to take over Annie's spot as not only the party organizer but Lillian's best friend.

The competition for Lillian's attention produces some hilarious results, including a seemingly never-ending toast in which Annie and Helen try to one-up each other that's squirm-worthy uncomfortable. And as the wedding date draws closer and Annie messes up over and over again, her friendship with Lillian is strained to the point of snapping.

Bridesmaids gives us flawed real world characters unlike the females of Sex and the City - the only other recent female-based R-rated comedy. I don't know a Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, or Samantha but I do know an Annie and a Lillian. Wiig and Mumolo, and director Paul Feig, have put together Bridesmaids following the assumption women want to see female characters they can relate to in situations that don't involve hunting for men or dressing to impress, and they want to see those women as the leads in a comedy that doesn't need a handsome male lead to come in and deliver the funny lines while the women stand around as second class citizens or, even worse, pretty window dressing. Their assumption is correct, and they've succeeded in delivering the goods.

Universal deserves credit here for taking a chance and gambling on Bridesmaids. Hopefully it will pay off well enough that other films of its kind will be greenlit.