In which we give our worthless, ill-informed opinion on a
cultural event that happened some time ago. First:
BRIDESMAIDS (2011)
This is a problematic film, and the problem with it is that
it’s exactly the opposite of what its audience thought it was.
It’s pretty much a female version of the many male-led
gross-out comedies that have been around for a few years. You know the type:
three or four emotionally-retarded yet somehow successful slobs do something,
things go wrong, there are fart gags and slapstick and everybody learns
something by the end. But Bridesmaids’s
script, by KristenWiig (who also stars) got nominated for both an Oscar
and a Bafta. So surely there’s more depth to it than there’d be in just another
Hangover movie?
Well no, there’s not. Wiig’s character, Annie, is a
passive-aggressive loser who spends too much time moping at the sight (and the
site) of her failed bakery business, and way too much more time being a wealthy
idiot’s sexual plaything. If we’re supposed to treat Annie with some kind of
benevolent indulgence, it’s hard work to do so. She rents a room from a Comedy
Brit who violates her privacy. She’s dominated by her mother. She’s a willing
victim and it’s almost impossible to feel sympathy for her.
As is usual, Annie meets someone. But Officer Rhodes (Chris
O’Dowd) is a bully and a control freak: they meet when he stops her for a minor
traffic offence, and the first time Annie refuses to do as he wants, he throws
her out and sulks like a child. Yet she (and we) is supposed to realise that
he’s her soulmate. In a way, he is: both characters are immature, selfish,
superficially pleasant but deeply unlikeable underneath. So she capitulates, she does what he wants, and still he acts like a prick about it.
There is no happy ending to this film. Annie drives off in
her white knight’s squad car, lights and sirens blazing in another show of
self-obsession. The wedding has been as micro-managed and over-the-top as the bride feared it
would be. The bridesmaids don’t become friends, or at least there’s no sense of
any further growth in their relationship: they just go off in different
directions with no sign of any concern for each other. It’s like a replay of
the final scene of It’s Always Fair Weather (1955) but where that film was
heavy with a sense of loss and regret, Bridesmaids is just yeah, see ya,
whatevs.
The biggest problem I have with Bridesmaids is that it’s
been seen as a major step forward for women comedians. Yes, it’s written by
women and most of the cast are indeed female. But it’s directed by a man, and I
can’t help but wonder if Wiig would have made a better film if she’s been
completely in charge. And I can’t help but wonder how a film as far off the
mark as Bridesmaids, with its overt insistence that the women it centres on
are, in essence, a bunch of people you’d never care to spend time with
regardless of their gender, can be seen as either a celebration of or a step
forward for female film. It’s not a female film; it’s a male film that happened
to be made by women, and as such it’s no different from and no better than The
Hangover Part Three.
But then, I’m a man. So what do I know?
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