I wanted so badly to love Bridesmaids as a comedy. I wanted to go in and “laugh so hard I cried” like the woman mentioned in that Salon article about how seeing it was a feminist responsibility. I really wanted nothing more than to leave the theater high on the same sort of giddy mirth I felt after seeing Paul (all four times). Instead I found the movie almost unbearably depressing. I sat watching Kristen Wiig’s character watch her life spin out of control and instead of laughing at the over-the-top antics, I instead found myself crying.
While I’ve never caused a bridal party to suffer from explosive vomiting/diarrhea (which by the way was so gross I had to cover my eyes) I do know what it feels like to be so rudderless. Annie had a passion for baking, but it didn’t work out and everything about her life just becomes kind of awful and shitty. The way she tiptoes around Jon Hamm’s douchebag character, her low paying job that she is ill-suited for and doesn’t like, losing her best friend to marriage and other friends… there isn’t anything she can do but just watch it happen. The whole thing was just so fucking depressing.
I got that same upsetting spinning-out-of-control feeling I get when I watch Meet the Parents. There are moments where I laughed but mostly it just felt horrible. So yeah, I sat through a comedy matinee crying.
Still, go see it. Kristen Wiig is fantastic, and even though it was depressing, it was still nice to see women I could relate to in a movie.
