The Little Mermaid: Waterlogged

The Little Mermaid (2023) • View trailer

2.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, for dramatic intensity and some scary images

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.26.23

Following in the lamentable footsteps of 2017’s live-action Beauty and the Beast, which transformed its absolutely perfect animated predecessor into a 129-minute slog, this live-action update of 1989’s 83-minute charmer similarly has become an even more bloated 135-minute exercise in tedium.

 

When Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) nearly drowns, following the loss of his ship,
Ariel (Halle Bailey) manages to save him, and drag him to shore.

I’ve no idea why Disney continues to tarnish the memory of these legacy classics, particularly when this one has been done so clumsily. The original Alan Menken/Howard Ashman song score has been “enhanced” with three new tunes by Menken and lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda, and — all due respect to the latter’s better credentials — the mis-match is glaring.

 

Worse yet, Miranda also added additional lyrics to several of Ashman’s existing songs, which were perfectly fine to begin with, thank you very much.

 

David Magee’s updated — and protracted — script apparently was designed to inject a new subtext of inclusiveness: a usually welcome theme which, alas, is delivered here with the subtlety of a sledge hammer. (I’m not one to scream “woke” at the drop of a fin, but good grief, folks; was the overkill really necessary?)

 

2021’s Luca handled this far more gracefully.

 

All of this is a shame, because Halle Bailey is sensational as this new film’s Ariel. She has terrific screen presence, a gorgeous — and powerful — singing voice, and an expressive face that conveys a wealth of emotion. The one saving grace of the otherwise tiresome second hour — which spends far too much time with Ariel navigating her human form in the prince’s castle — is the endearing charm of her muteness (having traded her voice for legs).

 

But that’s getting ahead of things. A quick recap, for newcomers:

 

Ariel, one of the seven daughters of King Triton (Javier Bardem, pompously grave), has long been fascinated by the intriguing trinkets and tchotchkes that occasionally fall overboard from passing ships (or, less happily, which she salvages from shipwrecks). This is a source of amusement to her best friends, Flounder the fish (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) and Sebastian the crab (Daveed Diggs), who also is Triton’s major-domo.

 

Whenever Ariel surfaces, in order to clandestinely observe the mysterious doings of these humans in their passing ships, her little gang is augmented by Scuttle (Awkwafina), a neurotic, dim-witted diving seabird who fancies herself an expert on All Things Human.

 

The Kitchen: Not much cooking

The Kitchen (2019) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for considerable profanity and bloody violence
By Derrick Bang

Strong performances can’t compensate for a weak script, no matter how much this film hopes you’ll think otherwise.

Are you talkin' to us? Claire (Elisabeth Moss, left), Ruby (Tiffany Haddish, center) and
Kathy (Melissa McCarth) find little to admire in the so-called men left to run the
Irish Mob in Hell's Kitchen.

Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss act up a storm, and their characters are solid; they easily hold our attention (although it’s probably a stretch to suggest that we ever sympathize with them). But too many key supporting characters are woefully underdeveloped, even when it’s crucial to understand them better.

Others have ethics that float like leaves on a stiff breeze. The sudden shifts can induce viewer whiplash.

Blame easily is assigned to first-time director Andrea Berloff, who also supplied a clumsy screenplay based on the eight-part 2015 comic book series by Ollie Masters and Ming Doyle. In her haste to mount a female-oriented crime thriller appropriately timed to the #MeToo movement, Berloff has forgotten the first rule of cinema: It’s always the story, stupid.

The setting is 1978 New York City, in the 20 blocks of pawn shops, porn palaces and dive bars squatting between Eighth Avenue and the Hudson River: aptly known as Hell’s Kitchen, and ruled by the Irish Mafia. The story hits the ground running, as gangsters Jimmy (Brian d’Arcy James), Kevin (James Badge Dale) and Rob (Jeremy Bobb) stage a hold-up, only to be interrupted by police and the FBI.

The result: three years in prison.

They leave families behind. Jimmy’s wife, Kathy (McCarthy), wonders how she’ll feed their two adolescent children. Kevin’s wife, Ruby (Haddish), is left in the company of her hateful mother-in-law, Helen (Margo Martindale), a spiteful-tongued shrew and neighborhood matriarch, who calls the shots behind the scenes. Rob’s battered wife, Claire (Moss), is grateful for his absence.

The Mob falls under the half-assed rule of Little Jackie (Myk Watford), whose promise to take care of the three women — because “we’re family” — proves woefully insufficient. Taking note of the general neighborhood dissatisfaction with Little Jackie, who demands protection money without offering protecting, Kathy and her friends decide to take matters into their own hands.

They’re initially nervous and unschooled in the ways of violence, but they learn quickly.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? — Fascinating character study

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity and brief drug use
By Derrick Bang

New York-based freelance journalist/author Lee Israel published three biographies between 1972 and ’85, about actress Tallulah Bankhead, game show contestant Dorothy Kilgallen, and cosmetics maven Estée Lauder. The Kilgallen book earned considerable praise and hit The New York Times Best Sellers list; the Lauder tell-all was an ill-advised money grab that badly damaged Israel’s career, and sent her into an emotional tail-spin.

And so it begins: Having realized that a carefully "embellished" letter by a noted literary
celebrity is worth more to collectors, Lee (Melissa McCarthy, right) offers just such a
doctored document to antiquarian bookseller Anna (Dolly Wells), who reads it delightedly.

By 1992, 53-year-old Israel was a withdrawn, embittered alcoholic enduring a savage case of writer’s block, with no means of support; she faced eviction from a decaying apartment laden with hundreds (thousands?) of musty books, along with the paper debris and correspondence from a three-decade career.

Her “solution” — the impulsive means by which she kept a roof over her head — remains notorious and controversial to this day.

Director Marielle Heller’s Can You Ever Forgive Me? is an unflinching account of this later chapter in Israel’s life: an often excruciating depiction of the depths to which self-pity can drive somebody. The grimly mesmerizing saga is fueled by two phenomenal performances, starting with Melissa McCarthy’s fearless portrayal of Israel.

Your raised eyebrows, gentle reader, are unwarranted. McCarthy demonstrated a solid talent for straight drama with her memorable supporting role in 2014’s St. Vincent, and her work here makes good — and then some — on that promise. Frankly, it’s a shame she continues to toil so far beneath her abilities, with low-brow comedy trash such as Tammy, Spy, Heat and pretty much everything else she has done since 2011’s Bridesmaids jump-started her big-screen career.

Actually, comedic stars-turned-serious actors aren’t that uncommon in Hollywood; the roster includes Bill Murray, Emma Thompson, Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams, Steve Carell and quite a few others. No less than Jackie Gleason earned an Oscar nomination for his supporting role as Minnesota Fats, in 1961’s The Hustler.

Unforgettable dramatic characters often are driven by anguish and disappointment: a desperate state of mind that comedians know all too well. McCarthy is no different, and her persuasive work here frequently transcends the artifice of acting; it’s easy to believe that we’ve somehow stumbled into a means of time-shift voyeurism, and become privy to the actual Lee’s day-by-day exploits.

That’s not merely sensitive direction and accomplished acting, of course; credit also goes to scripters Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty, and their note-perfect adaptation of Israel’s fourth and final book, written just six years before her death in 2014. (That memoir’s title shall remain unshared for the moment, since it’s a total spoiler.)

At first blush, there’s nothing sympathetic or appealing about McCarthy’s depiction of Lee. She’s slovenly, unkempt and aggressively rude to strangers and colleagues alike. She has no friends, and it’s frankly amazing that her agent (Jane Curtain, as Marjorie) continues to tolerate the abuse.

It’s difficult to determine whether Lee is clinically depressed or “merely” misanthropic, although the distinction could be telling; the former option might justify a semblance of pity. But McCarthy doesn’t yield; even Lee’s one apparently redeeming quality — a steady devotion to her 12-year-old cat, Jersey — is offset by the squalor in which they exist (the specifics of which, when fully revealed, are a stomach-churning experience).

Life of the Party: Out of control

Life of the Party (2018) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for sexual candor, drug content and blue humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.11.18

This is a mildly amusing, occasionally endearing 30-minute movie.

Unfortunately, it runs 105 minutes.

Deanna (Melissa McCarthy, with paddle) is delighted when her daughter's sorority sisters
enthusiastically accept her as a member.

At its core, this story has a nifty message of empowerment, seizing the day, and making lemonade when life extends only lemons. (Or the other way around, as one of these characters insists.) It’s a solid premise: Unexpectedly divorced, middle-aged woman returns to college in order to earn the degree she was one short year from obtaining. 

That she happens to choose the university where her daughter is beginning her senior year, clearly adds to the comedic potential. Not a bad start.

Unfortunately, star Melissa McCarthy too frequently clutters up the film with her tediously unfunny shtick. Ergo, school’s out.

Just like the aforementioned young woman who mixes up the lemons/lemonade proverb, McCarthy clearly misunderstood one of filmmaking’s golden rules: that less is more. She seems to believe that more is more, when in fact — as becomes blindingly obvious on numerous occasions, as this flick stumbles its way to end of term — more is much, much less.

McCarthy takes a leaden one-liner — or an embarrassing calamity such as flop sweat, or an ancient, been-there-tired-of-that gag such as marijuana-induced giggles — and repeats it until we scream for mercy. Apparently (perceptively) concerned that the bit isn’t that funny to begin with, she beats it into submission, under the misguided assumption that reiteration confers hilarity.

It does not. It confers eye-rolling exasperation.

That’s the frequent reaction to this film. Every time McCarthy and director Ben Falcone bring us to a reasonably happy place — a point where we think, well, maybe this won’t be so awful — she stages another of her seemingly desperate bids for chuckles, thereby bringing everything to a dead stop.

She’s like a little kid: Looka me! Looka me! Looka me!

She and real-life husband Falcone have collaborated on three films now: He directs; she stars; they share scripting credit. Given that their previous partnerships have yielded 2014’s Tammy and 2016’s The Boss — both blindingly gawdawful flops — you’d think Warner Bros. would have thought long and hard, before granting them a third time at bat.

Because while it’s true Life of the Party is somewhat better than those stinkers, that’s damning with awfully faint praise.

Ghostbusters: Don't bother to call

Ghostbusters (2016) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for supernatural action and crude humor
By Derrick Bang 

It can be argued, with reasonable justification, that a film shouldn’t be remade unless one intends to deliver a new version that is superior to, or at least as good as, its predecessor.

The franchise busters behind this 21st century Ghostbusters failed in their mission.

With all of New York City under assault by legions of cranky phantasms, the Ghostbusters —
from left, Abby (Melissa McCarthy), Jillian (Kate McKinnon), Erin (Kristen Wiig) and Patty
(Leslie Jones) — suit up and ready their proton packs.

In every way that matters.

In theory, the gender switch is a delightful idea ... but only had it been accompanied by better material. It feels as if helmer Paul Feig and co-writer Katie Dippold believed that we’d be so charmed by the notion of women in those iconic uniforms, that we’d forgive the lackluster directing and clumsy, inadequate script. They didn’t even try.

The primary distinction involves tone. The 1984 original’s far-fetched premise notwithstanding, the guys took their work seriously; Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson gave solemn, even stern, line readings. That contrast — their earnestness, in the face of crazed circumstances — made the film hilarious. The humor was arch, not infantile.

The Aykroyd/Ramis script also was constructed with some care, and with adults in mind. In a film laden with great one-liners, none was funnier than Murray’s response to the possessed Sigourney Weaver, when she tried to seduce him by moaning, “I want you inside me.”

“No,” he replied, after a beat. “It sounds like you’ve got at least two or three people in there already.”

Nothing in this new film comes close to that level of sly humor; Feig’s preferred approach is the lazy, vulgar slapstick we see all too frequently these days. His cast most often behaves like the participants in a Saturday Night Live sketch, delivering isolated bits of (not very funny) business, with no thought to narrative continuity.

The 1984 film catered to all ages. This one’s for snickering, arrested adolescents. Which shouldn’t surprise us, given that Feig is the guy who, with Melissa McCarthy, inflicted us with The Heat and Spy.

And, as is the case with the recently released Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, too much of the dialogue here feels forced and ad-libbed; that’s particularly true of McCarthy, who frequently flails about as if she has forgotten her lines, and can’t come up with a reasonable substitute. She (and Feig?) apparently believe this to be “characterization.”

It feels like desperation.

Spy: Should have been kept under cover

Spy (2015) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for violence, gore, fleeting graphic nudity, and relentless profanity and coarse dialogue
By Derrick Bang 

Only in Hollywood could somebody get paid big bucks to write this sort of puerile swill.

Only in Hollywood could several levels of (presumably) savvy studio execs have seen any merit in this limp-noodle secret agent spoof.

With another mission behind them, debonair CIA agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law) and his
desk-bound handler, Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy), enjoy a celebratory dinner. Alas,
Bradley has no idea how much his colleague secretly pines for him ... even thought her
overtures couldn't be more obvious.

Only in Hollywood could a reasonably talented comedian have been “promoted” from successful supporting status, and stuffed into a string of starring roles, where she flails helplessly.

Only in Hollywood would such an individual keep getting additional shots in the barrel, abusing her fans with junk such as Identity Thief and Tammy.

And, just to spread the blame evenly, only in America would such fans continue to reward her efforts by buying tickets. An overall U.S. gross of $84.4 million for Tammy? $134.4 million for Identity Thief?

Seriously?

I guess H.L. Mencken’s 1926 observation remains even truer today: No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.

Or, to quote Walt Kelly’s comic strip character Pogo, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Melissa McCarthy has been a valued member of ensemble productions such as Bridesmaids and television’s Gilmore Girls. She and Billy Gardell continue to be a great team on television’s Mike & Molly. She was refreshingly sympathetic in a straight supporting part, in last year’s St. Vincent.

But a little of McCarthy goes a very long way, which is why she’s best used in measured, intermittent doses. When forced to carry an entire film, her extremely narrow acting range becomes glaringly visible; she huffs and puffs from one scene to the next, angrily spitting out her lines, as if daring us to find her anything less than hilarious.

So okay, Melissa; I took that dare a few films back, and I’ll take it anew. You’re still not funny. Your go-to movie persona has become a mean-spirited, potty-mouthed shrike. Your recent work isn’t merely un-funny; it’s sad and pathetic. I cannot imagine why you don’t demand better material, but hey: As long as the money keeps rolling in, I guess it doesn’t matter, right?

Granted, you’re not wholly at fault in this case. Most of the blame for this new film belongs to writer/director Paul Feig, who apparently did this work all by his widdle self. I’m sure he spent at least 15 minutes concocting this twaddle. Strip away the profanity from every character’s lines, remove the juvenile vulgar humor — the sort of coarse one-upsmanship exchanged by 12-year-old boys while surfing for porn behind closed bedroom doors — and we’d be left with a mostly silent movie.

Which would have been a vast improvement.

St. Vincent: Quite a character

St. Vincent (2014) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for sexual candor, mature thematic content and occasional profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.24.14

Bill Murray gets more emotional complexity out of a dangling cigarette, than most actors could generate via three pages of dialogue.

Intending to teach an all-important work ethic to young Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), Vincent
(Bill Murray) orders the boy to mow the yard ... despite the fact that actual blades of grass
are long gone, leaving nothing but dirt and dust behind.

He fires on all cylinders in this cheerfully caustic dramedy from writer/director Theodore Melfi, as polished a feature debut as one could hope for. (While he also co-wrote and directed Winding Roads back in 1999, that never made it past the film festival circuit ... so it doesn’t really count.)

Murray’s sterling presence aside, this film also boasts the best curmudgeon/trusting little boy dynamic since Billy Bob Thornton terrorized young Brett Kelly, in Bad Santa. But this film’s Jaeden Lieberher is a much stronger actor ... in his first film role, no less.

Cranky old coots are a cinematic staple going all the way back to W.C. Fields, who quite notoriously admitted to liking children “if they’re properly cooked.” More recent examples include Jack Nicholson, in As Good As You Get, and Clint Eastwood, in Gran Torino.

The hallmark of a truly sublime performance, however, comes with an actor’s ability to embrace and re-invent a timeworn cliché: to utterly own what once was a stereotype, and make it his own. Murray’s work here is just that sort of revelation.

His Vincent is a crusty, ill-kempt slob who occupies an equally dilapidated house in one of Brooklyn’s fading Sheepshead Bay side streets. An average afternoon involves several losses at the local racetrack, where quietly dangerous loan shark Zucko (Terrence Howard) warns about past-due debts, after which Vincent kills the rest of the day on a well-worn stool at a bar where everybody knows his name. And that he drinks too much.

Meals are an afterthought. The one treasure in Vincent’s life is his fluffy white cat, Felix, who definitely dines better than his master. Even after-hours sessions with his favorite stripper, a Russian “exotic dancer” named Daka (Naomi Watts), are more formality than pleasure; Vincent can’t even be bothered to stop smoking, or remove his clothes, while, ah, doing the nasty.

We’re somehow unsurprised to see that Daka is quite pregnant, not that this has slowed her strip club routines. Much. Yet. Watts has a great time with this feisty role, mangling the English language with straight-faced aplomb. Daka also is the only person who routinely stands up to Vincent, giving as good as she gets.

Tammy: Rude, crude and booed

Tammy (2014) • View trailer 
One star. Rated R, for profanity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang

Melissa McCarthy’s vulgar fat slob shtick is wearing very thin.

Believing that she needs some quick cash in order to help with her grandmother's impending
medical bills, Tammy (Melissa McCarthy, right) dons a minimal "disguise" and holds up a
fast-food joint ... with a "weapon" that's no more than her pointing fingers in a papr bag.
Yep, that's the level of humor in this bomb.

Tammy isn’t even a rough approximation of a film; it’s merely a series of disconnected scenes and encounters, clumsily stitched together in a limp effort at storytelling. McCarthy charges through the resulting mess like a bull in a china shop, as if daring us not to find her so-called antics funny.

I’ll take that dare, Melissa. You’re not funny.

Neither is your film.

Well, wait ... in fairness, I did laugh once, at a quick shot involving a raccoon and a doughnut. McCarthy had nothing to do with it.

I find it completely bewildering that an actress of McCarthy’s talent and timing, having established her comic chops with TV’s Mike & Molly (winning an Emmy) and the big screen’s Bridesmaids (Oscar nomination), would debase herself with material this puerile, sloppy and slapdash. I’m inclined to believe that even the Three Stooges would have rejected this script as beneath them.

Hollywood actresses have long struggled to achieve a level of equality, credibility and respect akin to their male co-stars ... and this is the path to success? Is demonstrating an ability to out-gross Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow and Farrelly brothers comedies really a sign of progress?

If so, that’s pretty sad.

McCarthy has nobody to blame but herself, since she shares scripting credit — if such a term even applies — with off-camera husband Ben Falcone, who also makes his directorial debut with this train wreck.

Note to Ben: Don’t lose your day job.

Falcone makes every rookie mistake in the book, starting with his tendency to frame his wife in tight close-ups, so that we can count every sweaty pore. And he clearly didn’t “direct” McCarthy in any sense of the word; he simply points the camera and waits while she stumbles and bumbles through whatever she concocts from thin air. Which ain’t much.

The Hangover, Part III: Out with a whimper

The Hangover, Part III (2013) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rating: R, for pervasive profanity and vulgar humor, some violence, a bit of drug content and some fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang

The third — and presumably concluding — entry in this franchise is nothing like its two predecessors.

Which is quite bizarre. And likely to irritate Wolfpack fans.

Having reluctantly agreed to follow Leslie Chow's (Ken Jeong, center right) scheme for
breaking into his own house, the Wolfpack members — from left, Phil (Bradley Cooper),
Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Stu (Ed Helms) — study an elaborate model and prepare
to add breaking-and-entering to their already checkered résumés.

I appreciate writer/director Todd Phillips’ desire not to do the same ol’ stuff yet again; in that sense, it’s refreshing to see him try something different. But this particular case of “something different” utterly abandons all the hallmarks that made the two previous films so popular with arrested adolescents.

No abandoned babies or monkeys this time. No out-of-control bachelor parties or Bangkok benders. No chipped teeth, no tattoos. Nothing, in fact, that embarrasses, humiliates, physically tarnishes or debases these guys to any degree.

So what fun is that?

Nobody gets hung over, either ... not from booze, not from drugs, not from anything else.

I must note, in fairness, that a brief post-credits tag scene delivers everything that's missing from the film itself ... so don't depart too quickly. But that's much too little, far too late.

Which makes this film’s title a betrayal, along with its plotline. Phillips and co-scripter Craig Mazin have slipped their characters into the parallel universe of a heist comedy: a detour that, ironically, probably will be viewed as more satisfying to folks who prefer not to wallow in sleaze.

But wallowing in sleaze is the Wolfpack job description. Phillips’ detour here is akin to discovering that one’s most disreputable local fraternity has transformed itself into the epitome of Christian civility.

Well, no; things haven’t gotten that pure. This film’s R rating is well earned for pervasive profanity, because these guys still drop F-bombs the way most of us use descriptive adjectives. And yes, there’s a bit of violence and drug content. And one burst of nudity at a rather unexpected moment.

And a ghastly incident involving a giraffe. And a low freeway overpass.

All that said, though, this still feels like Wolfpack Lite.

Identity Thief: Two hours stolen from our lives

Identity Thief (2013) • View trailer
One star. Rating: R, for violence, vulgarity, relentless profanity and frequently crude sexuality
By Derrick Bang

Some things just aren’t funny, and identity theft is high on that list. Any veteran of the struggle to reclaim bank accounts, credit ratings and the rest — and that’s quite a lot of people, at this point — will be thoroughly disgusted by an effort to paint the process as “amusing.”

Having just caught up with the woman (Melissa McCarthy) who hijacked his bank
account and good name, Sandy (Jason Bateman) spoils her day by revealing his
genuine driver's license. Alas, that won't cut much ice; he's a few seconds away
from a sucker-punch to the throat. 

But that didn’t stop scripters Craig Mazin and Jerry Eeten from trying to fashion a comedy out of this topic, a task at which they failed miserably.

Identity Thief signals its tawdry, numbnuts lack of redeeming virtues almost immediately; it’s one of those gawdawful flicks that has you scanning for exits before 5 minutes have passed, in case rapid flight is the better part of valor.

Trust me: It’s your best option.

Seth Gordon has gone nowhere but down since coming to Hollywood’s attention with 2007’s The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, a whimsical and thoroughly fascinating documentary about an unemployed Washington teacher’s attempts to break a longstanding record in the arcade game Donkey Kong.

Since then, Gordon has burnished his rep with clumsy, badly paced and thoroughly humorless junk such as Four Christmases and Horrible Bosses. He seems to fancy himself a low-rent Judd Apatow wannabe, trolling in projects that offer the same uncomfortable blend of profanity, vulgarity, moron slapstick and “funny” violence.

Yes, indeed: Nothing elicits chuckles like the sight of a woman being smacked by an SUV and then hurled, like a sack of potatoes, to the side of a highway ... after which she gets up and dusts herself off, apparently having bruised no more than her dignity. Uh-huh.

The degree of Gordon’s miscalculation, in that scene alone, can be clocked by the gasps of horror as the woman was hit ... and the muted, barely there wisp of nervous laughter when she stood up and made light of the incident. You lost a theater filled with viewers there, Seth.

Actually, that’s not true; you lost ’em a good hour before that.

Jason Bateman is a reasonably funny and competent actor cursed by the worst taste in projects, often ghastly attempts at romantic comedy such as Couples Retreat and The Switch. He also was part of Gordon’s Horrible Bosses debacle, and these aren’t even the most awful; all three of his 2012 films — The Longest Week, Hit and Run and Disconnect — barely achieved theatrical release. Never heard of them? Consider yourself lucky.

Bridesmaids: Gals behaving badly

Bridesmaids (2011) • View trailer for Bridesmaids
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity, sexuality and relentless vulgarity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.13.11


If Bridesmaids is intended to demonstrate that gal-pal comedies can be just as disgusting, loathsome and bereft of morals as their male counterparts, I’m afraid it fails.

Because in all the respects that matter, this film is superior to crude, bottom-of-the-barrel efforts such as the recent Hall Pass and most of what comes from the Farrelly brothers or Judd Apatow’s repertory company.

The atmosphere is fun, and the food is delicious ... but this convivial meal is
about to have dire consequences, much to the mortification of Annie (Kristen
Wiig, right), who once again will lose face in front of best friend Lillian (Maya
Rudolph, center) and new nemesis Helen (Rose Byrne).

Which is ironic, since Apatow co-produced Bridesmaids, as well.

Although occasionally clumsy and somewhat randomly directed, Bridesmaids nonetheless delivers something that the guys-behaving-badly sub-genre always overlooks: emotional depth. The women here aren’t merely one-liner delivery systems, debasing themselves at every turn and occasionally dropping skirt to defecate in public (although we get pretty close); they have reasonably credible relationships with each other, and — here’s the key — they evolve, during the course of the script written by Annie Mumolo and star Kristen Wiig.

The very core of the humor is entirely different. We laugh here because we do come to care about these women; the comic set-pieces derive from the character dynamics, rather than a ham-handed writer and/or director’s decision to be as vulgar as possible ... for no discernable reason.

Which is not to say that Bridesmaids never strays from its generally superior path. Apatow’s gross-’em-out touch can be felt at times, most notoriously during the aftermath of an ill-advised meal at a dive café, when everybody winds up with a case of food poisoning, and a desperately explosive need to, ah, relieve themselves from every available orifice.

Even here, though, director Paul Feig ultimately strikes a blow for restraint. While vile fluids flow freely from three characters, as they battle for the single commode in a public restroom, consider the different approach taken by Maya Rudolph’s Lillian, as she panics, heads outside and starts to cross the street, scrambling to reach ... well, it doesn’t really matter. Feig holds the camera as Lillian realizes she’s not going to make it, Rudolph’s face contorted in ghastly resignation, as she surrenders to the moment... the details of which are left to our imagination.

That’s much, much funnier that the excrement-laden free-for-all back in the bathroom.

A modern filmmaker’s ability to wallow in gratuitous filth doesn’t automatically require one to yield to such impulses. Whether in horror films or vulgar comedies, I’ve long argued that less is more ... although I cheerfully acknowledge that not everybody agrees.

But enough from the soapbox.

Annie (Wiig), her life in a mess, has a mixed reaction when BFF Lillian announces her engagement. Although delighted, Annie’s also worried that their own relationship will, of necessity, change ... and probably not for the better.

Lillian naturally asks Annie to be the maid of honor, but the latter’s efforts in that role are constantly undercut by Helen (Rose Byrne, a sly schemer), one of the other bridesmaids. Helen, a constant over-achiever, is determined to be the center of attention at all times ... while demonstrating that she is Lillian’s best friend. Poor Annie, insecure to begin with, finds herself playing catch-up at every turn.