Movie Review: Bridesmaids

LITTLE ROCK — Judd Apatow is one of the few motion picture producers - Jerry Bruckheimer may be the only other - whose name carries commercial currency. Apatow is an established brand, the go-to shop for raunchy-sweet R-rated comedy.

While we might like some of “his” movies better than others - maybe you prefer Knocked Up to The 40-Year-Old Virgin or Superbad to Stepbrothers - they all share a sort of comic ethos. Their heroes are vulgar, but human and - until now - unremittingly, touchingly,dumbly male. More than anything else, an Apatow movie was a boy movie.

Bridesmaids is probably a boy movie too, at least insofar as its humor is often crude and sexually derived, but its stars are women, and its point of view is at least nominally female. It’s also outrageously, uproariously funny and smart about the way human beings court affection and measure themselves against their peers. It is an emotionally intelligent movie with immodestly high ambitions - it is an uneven, lowbrow comedy that means to win your heart.

I don’t know how much credit for this is due to its star, Kristen Wiig, who also cowrote the script with Annie Mumolo, but I can’t imagine the film working with another actor in the role of Annie, the pretty entrepreneur who - her fiscal dreams broken on the wheel of the recession - finds herself obliged to serve as her marrying-up best pal Lillian’s (Maya Rudolph) maid of honor in acomically upscale nouveau riche wedding.

Of course, just when Lillian finds her greatest happiness, Annie is destitute and boyfriend-less, about to be reduced to living with her mother (the late and ever lovely Jill Clayburgh, in her last role). She desultorily tends the jewelry store of a man who hired her as a favor to her mother and responds to early morning booty calls from a wealthy lout (played with relish by Jon Hamm) who isn’t comfortable with her sleeping over.

Wiig is simply terrific at communicating the class anxieties that attend Lillian’s impending step up in socialclass. Annie represents Lillian’s working-class Milwaukee past but her future lies with Chicago’s country club set, and with new friends like trophy wife Helen (Rose By rne), who just happens to be very good at organizing social affairs. Seemingly touched by grace, Helen rapidly emerges as a rival for Lillian’s sisterly affections - and deeply insecure Annie bristles and overreaches, leading to a series of debacles that ruin some of the traditional Kodak moments of the bride-to-be.

Wiig is the undisputed star of the film; whether she’s going over-the-top in a wonderful slapstick set on an airliner, precisely trading sotto voce insults with a gum-cracking teenager or simply tightening her smile to convey Annie’slisting confidence, she manages to remain true to her character’s pathetic yet valiant soul. She explores a rich vein of unattractive neediness in Annie, without ever losing our empathy. This isn’t the sort of performance for which they give awards, but it’s not likely you’ll see any better acting this year.

It’s the sort of performance only a real movie star can pull off.

That said, Wiig is abetted by a fine supporting cast, not all of whom have enough to do. Melissa McCarthy emerges in what we might think of as the Jonah Hill role, but the other two bridesmaids, Ellie Kemper and Wendi McLendon-Covey, are barely sketched in. Director Paul Feig isn’t able to impose a consistent tone - or maybe part of what stamps this as an Apatow product is its jarring tonal shifts - and the film does go on a little (maybe 15 minutes) too long.

Irish comedian Chris O’Dowd has some nice moments as Rhodes, a Wisconsin state trooper who romances Annie with his Irish brogue and off-kilter sense of humor, but the subplot feels conventional and grafted-on, a sop to romantic comedy convention. And there’s a dress-fitting scene that turns unspeakably gross and disgusting (although you will no doubt laugh despite your umbrage).

Bridesmaids is in the first rank of Apatow movies; it may be the best so far. But more importantly, it’s the first great Wiig movie. Let’s hope there are lots more.