Bridesmaids revisited

After succumbing to all the hype I finally watched Bridesmaids the other night and was unfortunately disappointed. Part of the problem was the fact that it had been hyped so much, from comments like “funniest film of the year” to “the female Hangover”. For funniest film of the year, it might be, but only because I can’t think of any other comedies that are jumping out at me as being massively funny this year. As for it being a female version of The Hangover, which I’m a big fan of, I felt it fell short.

Not to say that I disliked it. The first act was pretty funny and a good scene setter, and the second act was hilarious – the scene on the plane was side-splittingly entertaining. However, the third act was disappointing and not funny enough to pay off a lot of good set up. The sing-a-long was also pretty misjudged.

Kristen Wiig is a strong female comic and made for a good lead, and Chris O’Dowd continues to break Hollywood as her charming love interest, but the film is less about her relationship with him and more about her “Bra-mance” with her best friend. It was a nice idea to shift the bromance concept that is permeating cinema at the moment onto women, and there were some really good comic moments, but I just felt that it could have been more.

There are some great supporting turns from Rose Byrne (who is proving to be incredibly versatile), Jon Hamm (playing a super-sleazed up caricature of his role on Mad Men) and Matt Lucas. The main comedy props go to Melissa McCarthy though, who completely steals the film from everyone else. By the end of the film you wanted to have seen much more of her character.

There are a couple of other characters who are woefully underused – Ellie Kemper from The US Office and Wendi McLendon-Covey from Reno 911 –just when they are beginning to develop on the plane ride to Vegas they end up disappearing for practically the rest of the film.  Which is a real shame as if there had been more focus on the Bridesmaids as a group in the third act and less on the lead character’s spiral into depression, the whole film would have been a lot funnier and would have remained consistent with the marvellous second act.

Overall, it’s good but it could have been better. I think my perception of it was skewed somewhat negatively by all the hype, but then it’s been one of the most successful comedies ever, so what do I know.