KRISTEN WIIG IN BRIDESMAIDS

Rating: ***1/2

title: BRIDESMAIDS
year: 2011
cast: Kristin Wiig, Rose Byrne

Men, don’t sweat: if your girlfriend or wife drags you along, you’ll have fun. The story involves Saturday Night Live’s Kristin Wiig, a single woman unlucky in love but not love making… the film begins with a spicy romp with banal stud Jon Hamm, who asks her to leave in the morning... thus the misadventure begins. Her best friend Maya Rudolph is getting married and Wiig’s asked to be the maid of honor, but she’s not alone. There’s the painfully perfect Rose Byrne, Rudolph’s workplace crony, who sneakily challenges Wiig and Rudolph's lifelong friendship... Leading to the question: who’ll influence the bridal shower theme?

The rivals are not only competing for the bride-to-be’s friendship, but the respect of the other bridesmaids as well, including hefty scene-stealer Melissa McCarthy. And of course, a love-interest is always essential and friendly cop Chris O’Dowd fills that peripheral space with ease as Wiig, the every-woman's comic, is given a platform for spontaneous humor and, when things pile up, nervous breakdowns, making this a frantic romp with hit-and-miss jokes but more importantly, an interesting ensemble within a universal story of love and friendship that either sex can relate to.