As her life falls apart, Annie (Kristin Wiig) is asked by her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) to be her maid-of-honor at her upcoming wedding. Trying to navigate her own troubles without letting her responsibilities in regards to Lillian’s nuptials slide, Annie is undercut at seemingly very turn by know-it-all Helen (Rose Byrne), a wealthy socialite intent upon usurping her position. Ellie Kemper, Wendi McLendon-Covey and the amazing Melissa McCarthy round out the cast as the remaining female members of the wedding party.

CRITIQUE

Here’s what I wrote about Bridesmaids back in May:

“What’s great about Bridesmaids is how honest it is. These women may be broad, they might be larger than life as far as personality is concerned, but the things they are talking about and the stuff they are dealing with is refreshingly honest. This group talk about things in frank, up-front tones that are sometimes shocking, oftentimes hysterical and almost always true, and because of that no matter how silly events become or how absurd single moments are there is an underlying sincerity that’s positively irrefutable.

What’s not so great about Bridesmaids is the stop-and-start structure of star Wiig and fellow writer Annie Mumolo’s script. You can tell both come from the world of stand-up and sketch comedy. The film feels as if it were made up of individual skits, not a cohesive narrative where one scene is tied directly to the other. It’s as if the pair thought up the idea, roughed out an outline of where they wanted to get to and of the emotional benchmarks they wanted to hit and then came up with a series of vignettes that would get them from A to B to C.

Don’t get me wrong, when vignettes or sketches are this funny I could care less if they don’t necessarily combine together as a whole as well or as confidently as they potentially could have. But much like a well-written “Saturday Night Live” skit a lot of these go on longer then they should, Wiig and Mumolo taking a great idea or setting up a wonderful comedic moment only to allow them to linger on a minute or two longer than necessary.

And yet Bridesmaids almost can’t help but work. Annie is as well-defined and as three-dimensional an adult thirty-something female character as I’ve seen in ages, her journey a bittersweet slog through modern realities that is both touching and tragic. Better, it is also funny, and like all great observational comedy should the writers call attention to current social and economic events doing so in a way that doesn’t feel forced or heavy-handed.

The direction by “Freaks and Geeks” creator Paul Feig is solid if uninspired, and for the most part he lets his gifted cast of actresses do their thing without any overbearing operatic visual or editing interference on his part. At the same time, as already stated he does allow things to drag, and one does get the feeling he could have cut a good 10 to 15 minutes and not lost an ounce of the movie’s emotional or comedic resonance.

Wiig is the clear standout (her relationship with mild-mannered traffic cop Chris O’Dowd is priceless), but at the same time Byrne, McCarthy , McLendon-Covey and especially Kemper all have little moments and scenes that brought a whole series of smiles to my face. There’s a great extended bit on a plane heading to Las Vegas where all of the actresses soar, the whole thing culminating in a farcical bit of beguiling fluff that had me excitedly giggling like a semi-insane madwoman.

I’d love it if Bridesmaids ends up being a hit, and while I can’t say it is as perfect or as consistent as I’d have wanted it to be I did enjoy myself for much of the film’s 125-minute running time. It ends beautifully, the final segments as witty and as poignant as any I could have imagined. While not perfect, this movie hits so many melodious notes it’s easy to forgive the sour ones, and as comedies go I have a feeling Wiig and Mumolo’s is one that could possibly grow on me even more after a second viewing.”

Bridesmaids holds up incredibly well the second time around. While the same flaws are still around, they end up not mattering near as much in the comfort of one’s own home as they did in the movie theatre. That said, the unrated extended cut does amplify the film’s central defect and that is its length, so if I were to urge viewers to do one thing it would be to stick with the theatrical version and leave the six-minutes longer one alone.

But this is a good movie, sometimes even a great one, and it does come awful close to being 2011’s best mainstream comedy (although, while I wouldn’t quite call it either ‘mainstream’ or a ‘comedy,’ the very, very funny Midnight in Paris is admittedly far, far superior). I enjoy the heck out of it, and I imagine this is a flick I’m going to revisit a handful of times over the next few years.

THE VIDEO

Bridesmaids is presented on a dual-layer 50GB Blu-ray MPEG-4 AVC Video sporting a 1080p 2.40:1 transfer.

THE AUDIO

Bridesmaids walks up the Blu-ray aisle with an English 5.1 DTS Master Audio track as well as French and Spanish DTS 5.1 tracks, while offer up English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitle options.

EXTRAS

So, as I’ve already said above, the Blu-ray comes with both Theatrical and Unrated Extended viewing options (and, again as I’ve already stated, I’d stick with watching the former) but it also comes packed with a bevy of special features most notably over an hours worth of Deleted and Extended Scenes packaged under different subheads like ‘Roommates,’ ‘Drunk-O-Rama’ and ‘Annie vs. Helen.’ These are fascinating and make up the bulk of the extras, but watching them will take a lot of time so be prepared to be sitting on your couch playing with your remote a while as you make your way through them all.

Other extras include:

·         Audio Commentary with director Paul Feig, co-writer Annie Mumolo, co-writer and actress Kristin Wiig and actresses Maya Rudolph, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ellie Kemper and Melissa McCarthy – Like most group commentary tracks, this one does descend into something of a verbal free-for-all. At the same time, there are plenty of insights to be found here, and no matter how crazy it all gets listening to these ladies (and their director) have such a great time conversing with one another about the movie is nearly (if not quite) as entertaining as the film itself proves to be.

·         Gag Reel (9:41) – Better than average, but that’s still not saying all that much.

·         Line-O Rama (12:13) – Sort-of gag reels focused on one actor showcasing their improvisational stylizations. Quite fascinating (and often time hilarious), if I’m being perfectly honest.

·         Made of Honor: Behind the Scenes of Bridesmaids (31:43) – like the gag reel, this behind-the-scenes is better than average yet at the same time isn’t exactly essential, most of the information imparted gone over in far more detail in the audio commentary.

·         Hold On (4:31) – For those in need of more Wilson Phillips, here’s the still-popular pop song in its entirety.

FINAL THOUGHTS