Bridesmaids - review

And her love life consists of being the occasional f**kbuddy of an absolute tosser (Mad Men's Jon Hamm), seen in the opening scene instructing her: "Cup my balls!" When he finally dumps her, his parting line is "you're no longer my number three".

Still, she has her best friend, Lillian (Maya Rudolph). They can say "I love you" to each other over breakfast and mean it. Then Lillian reveals she's not just engaged but getting married. "We can plan everything together," she tells Annie.

"Oh my God! Oh my God!" Annie squeals, as she must.

But this is catastrophic news for Annie in a world where women's status still depends on their men and there's no real sisterhood between women at all. At the engagement party, Annie meets her nemesis - Lillian's new best friend, Helen (Rose Byrne), ridiculously rich, beautiful and put-together. In the first of a series of set-piece comedy routines, Annie and Helen compete viciously to give the speech that will establish they are Lillian's truest friend, each grabbing the microphone back again and again, trying to top one another as "maid of honour".

As Annie, Kristen Wiig, the film's co-author, is wonderfully good, able to behave quite crazily without being so exasperating that she loses our sympathy. It's her film and it's going to make her a star.  

The other bridesmaids all offer alternative takes on women's choices. Newly married Becca (Ellie Kemper) doesn't know she's born. Weary Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey), however, is enslaved by her horny husband and teenage sons. "There's semen everywhere, one blanket actually cracked," she says, being reduced to this as a daydream: "I just want for once to watch the Daily Show without him entering me."

Megan (Melissa McCarthy) is a big fat bulldozer, crashing through everything. When the bridesmaids are musing over how to theme the bridal shower, she quite seriously suggests Fight Club: "We beat the s**t out of her, we just f**king attack." When she's trying to cheer Annie up, she tells her, "I'm Life and I'm going to bite you in the ass", and then she does.

Vomiting and diarrhoea jokes are not entirely new nor perhaps the apex of Western civilisation but the routine here, already famous, is destined to be a classic of its kind, the reference point. If you are going to do the uncontrollable emissions thing, having your sufferers, who have just ingested an "authentic" Brazilian meal, dolled up in bridal wear in a super-expensive all-white boutique, with just one loo, is a pretty good start - and they sure make the most of it.

Bridesmaids has an easy, lolloping pace and gives itself the time to push its scenarios to the limit. There's an improv element that really opens scenes out - quite unlike, say, in Mike Leigh's tight productions (there are moments in Annie's trajectory reminiscent of Mary's in Another Year).

Annie going crazy in a plane, Annie launching all-out war on a chocolate fountain, Annie rudely disabusing a teenage girl who wants to buy a "Friends For Ever" necklace - these are all great turns. Moreover, the film, directed by Paul Feig, is shot with remarkably dogged camera-over-the-shoulder shots, cutting back and forth with the dialogue, keeping the viewer tightly involved.

It has to be said that Bridesmaids is not a film that challenges the whole dreadful business of engagement parties, bridal showers and lavish weddings at all. (For that try Caitlin Moran's new book, How to Be a Woman, where she genially observes: "Weddings do women no good at all.

They're a viper's pit of waste and despair.") The movie ends with a big happy wedding scene with extra fireworks - and Annie is ultimately granted her good man, dorky Irish cop Rhodes (played with appealing directness by Chris O'Dowd). Not so revolutionary, not such a feminist break-out, after all, then. Indeed pretty much a rom-com in the end - but hugely enjoyable, fresh and rude, both touching and funny, all the way.

Bridesmaids
Cert: 15