

This is where the movie takes an interesting turn. They decide to go out and party and get so high that they end up hiring a stripper. Jess is engaged to Peter (co-writer Downs) and leaves him at home for the weekend.Īt dinner in Miami, Jess’s friends from college are joined by Pippa (McKinnon), an Australian who shared a college semester with Jess. She’s running for state office and down in the polls to someone who keeps posting photos of their genitals on social media.
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The R-rated comedy starts out with some college friends (Jess, Alice, Frankie, and Blair) at a party ten years ago before they reunite for Jess’s bachelorette party over a weekend in Miami. Enrique Murciano, Karan Soni, and Dean Winters also star. Downs, Rough Night stars Scarlett Johansson, Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer, Zoë Kravitz, Paul W. It's not "women and men, vive la difference." More like split la difference.Rough Night is another Bachelorette Party misadventure and it falls short of being on the same level as Bridesmaids.ĭirected by Lucia Aniello from a screenplay written by Aniello & Paul W. That exclusively female perspective some of us hoped for doesn't come through. But that might be because it's bifurcated: half formula chick flick, half raunchy comedy of humiliation. But the turning point in their relationship was either cut or never written.īridesmaids is often hilarious and likely to be a hit with both women and men. Chris O'Dowd, best known for the Brit sitcom The IT Crowd, shows up as an oddly Irish cop - this is Milwaukee - who falls for Annie, and his awkward rhythms are very appealing. Jon Hamm does a broad comic turn as Wiig's conceited sex buddy that would have worked better if the writing weren't so coarse. A subplot involving Wendie McLendon-Covey as a cynical mom and Ellie Kemper as a ninny newlywed gets short shrift, and the wonderful Melissa McCarthy gets mostly jokes exploiting her girth. While Wiig does her slapstick thing, a lot of the movie's potentially more penetrating material is undeveloped - or maybe cut, since Apatow-produced movies tend to come in overlong. Wiig's timing is brilliant, and Byrne, who is not as experienced a comedian, turns out to be every bit as pitch-perfect. It's a compulsive competition that of course can't be acknowledged because that's not how ladies behave in public.

The deeply threatened Annie jumps up and takes the mike back, and soon there are dueling mikes. The movie peaks early - too early - at Lillian's engagement party, when Annie gives a modest little toast, and then Helen takes the mike and gives a toast that's disarmingly polished. But there's a rival from Lillian's new country-club circuit for Lillian's friendship: the aristocratic beauty Helen, played by Rose Byrne. Lillian is newly engaged to a rich guy, and Annie will of course be maid of honor. Her best friend for life is Lillian, played by Wiig's old Saturday Night Live cast-mate Maya Rudolph - and their unforced rapport is one of the movie's pleasures. Wiig plays lonely, single Annie, who ran a cake shop that went bust and now works fitfully in a jewelry store. The idea of a "female mask," of women having to keep up appearances, is actually the key to Bridesmaids' best moments. And she has a good clown face for that - bland but rubbery enough to surprise you with its wide range of expression. Wiig's talent - and it's considerable - is for a kind of neurotic deadpan, a mask of blandness that regularly slips to make way for crazed insecurity and anger and passive-aggressiveness. As directed by Paul Feig, it's a killer vehicle for Wiig, who has been glamorized like mad: super-coiffed and dressed in micro-miniskirts, with the aim of making her part Lucille Ball and part Jennifer Aniston.

Where, many of us have asked, is the female perspective?Īpatow is more responsive to criticism than most moguls, and has now produced his first female-centric comedy, Bridesmaids, from a script by Annie Mumolo and the star, Kristen Wiig - with reportedly heavy input from the man himself. Judd Apatow has had his own Hollywood comedy factory for years now, but the charge that comes up again and again is that it's a boy's club - or rather a child-man's club, a place for nerds to write movies about nerds who act like juveniles before growing up and marrying thin, pretty women.
