Finding ever-more-novel ways to shoot herself in the foot, Annie also manages to blow it with the man she is obviously meant to be with, Rhodes ( Chris O’Dowd), a somewhat oafish cop with a curious Irish accent (they’re in Milwaukee, after all) whose crucial gift is an offbeat sense of humor that perfectly complements Annie’s. But she soon gets into a pissing match with Lillian’s newly found inseparable pal, the insanely rich Helen ( Rose Byrne), who gradually strips Annie of any influence with Lillian. No, this is where the boilerplate chick flick trappings assert themselves: There are outings for dresses and fittings, girly lunches, the bachelorette weekend trip, bridal shower, talks on the phone and so much else that has become the bane of audiences who may not be in the precise demographic category for this sort of vicarious wish-fulfillment fantasy.Īs the lifelong best friend of Lillian ( Maya Rudolph), Annie rightly assumes she will be maid of honor at the forthcoming nuptials. Unlike being a best man at a wedding, many guys will be interested to learn (or not) that this does not simply entail the equivalent of getting the groom plastered at the bachelor party and remembering to bring the ring to the ceremony. The device Wiig and her co-screenwriter Annie Mumolo use to delineate Annie’s continual decline and fall is the act of being a bridesmaid.
Although titled and decked out like a chick flick, this is a picture that can reach both sexes but won’t appeal much to teenagers, giving Universal a tricky but not insurmountable marketing challenge. For longtime Wiig fans, this uneven, overlong, emotionally involving and discreetly ambitious film will represent a welcome and overdue step up from her popular sketch work on Saturday Night Live to something sustained and searching, not to mention pretty funny. But while there is plenty of sex-oriented humor to follow (some of which feels awkwardly forced), what you actually get is a human comedy with empathetic appeal and a disarmingly candid take on feminine foibles. The raunchy/goofy opening sex scene between Kristen Wiig and Jon Hamm leads you to the immediate assumption that Bridesmaids will be serving up a mature female twist on the typical Judd Apatow production of a few years ago.