ViewGuide

Created May 27, 2011 08:29PM PST • Edited Jun 02, 2021 12:10AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue: Bridesmaids has ’em all. Concocted to score with young women, adult comedy fans of both sexes will also find this post-post-feminist movie genuinely funny, albeit not riotously funny.

   Let’s start with something old: thirtysomething Kristen Wiig’s age-old age-driven angst drives the comedy.

   Something new: a crass comedy chick flick, perfectly illustrated by a poster of the bridal party posing perp-like against a brick wall. American girls, meet your new role models, lined up like dudes — with better legs and more attractive body parts.

   Bridesmaids’ raunchy-sweet swirl comes borrowed from golden producer Jude Apatow. It turns out that Apatowian comedy plays surprisingly well through an X chromosomal filter, especially as solidly delivered by a largely female cast. (Hey, where’s the dudes?)

   What about something blue? That would be the humor. From food poisoning to sexual humiliation, nothing’s too crass.

   One final note: Standing in line to buy a pair of tickets, I was outnumbered two dozen to one by females. Estrogen alert.

4. Acting

   Good 3.0

   Kristen Wiig nails it, having mastered the modern comedic art of self-abasement. That said, she’s a bit batty to suggest Bridesmaids is real, as she does in the featurette video posted nearby. (“Featurette,” now there’s a feminine word for you.)

   Melissa McCarthy scores early and often, jumping off screen as a dude-like girl who really likes dudes.

   Jon Hamm looks much better with his hair slicked back. His bangs hanging down make him look goofy, a bit odd given his role of Asshole Hugh Hefner.

5. Male Stars OK 2.5

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars OK 2.5

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    Marriage is of paramount importance to the women in this film, though men are not. At least, they’re not important to the film, Kristen Wiig’s two boyfriends notwithstanding. The groom, for instance, is little more than a prop. On the one hand, this seems to be fair turnabout from male dominated movies. OTOH, it reflects the post-post-feminist rise of the bridezilla phenomena.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play Great 4.0

13. Music Great 4.0

    Girl Group bedazzling.

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 2.6

    Erotic, gentle, profane: 3x on sex and rudeness, while just 1.5 on violence, is apparently the secret edginess formula for attracting X chromosomes.

17. Sex Erotic 3.1

    3X ain’t XXX, much pantomiming notwithstanding.

18. Violence Gentle 1.5

19. Rudeness Profane 3.2

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.1

    Hardly real, more surreal.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.2

23. Biological Glib 2.0

24. Physical Surreal 2.1