Will Ferrell-Produced ‘Bachelorette’ Is Not Quite ‘Bridesmaids’ [Sundance 2012]
First-time filmmakerLeslye Headland’sBachelorettewill get a lot of comparison’s to Paul Feig’sBridesmaids. These comparisons are unfair. Each do have famous female actresses starring in comedies about crazy stuff that happens leading up to a wedding but, whereBridesmaidsis funny from start to finish and has a heart to boot,Bachelorrettehas a bunch of hilarious moments that never quite suck you in. It’s a fun movie, no more and no less, thanks in large part to the cast which includesKirsten Dunst, Isla Fisher, Lizze Caplan, Adam ScottandJames Mardsen.Party Downfans will be pleased.
What you notice right off the bat withBacheloretteis that these girls aren’t nice people. The film’s bride-to-be, who is marrying before her friends, is an overweight girl (Rebel Wilson fromBridesmaids) the characters call “pig face.” They do cocaine and have sordid, promiscuous pasts rife with self-loathing. Still, as the film begins, those with a wicked sense of humor will come to embrace these characters for those terrible traits and it’s fun to see how far they’ll go.
An incident with the bride’s wedding dress then sets the film off in a different direction and, slowly but surely, as these characters become slightly more human, they become less and less interesting. All this leads to a happy (ish) ending that feels like another movie entirely.
Party Downfans will be happy to see Caplan and Scott bickering again and Fisher is back to her cute, crazy,Wedding Crashersself. Also, for a first time director, Leslye Headland also does a hell of a job making a very 2012 movie. It just needed to be more coherent to really bring it home.
/Film rating – 6 out of 10
