Bridesmaids vs Knocked Up

Kristin Wiig only has a couple scenes in Knocked Up. You may even have forgotten she was in it at all. She plays Katherine Heigel’s passive-aggressive coworker, and does her usual mumbled asides and shrugs, like she’s working out a new character for SNL. There’s little effort put into her performance, but she takes the scenes she’s in, because her timing is deadly. She sets the pace of the scenes, because once she’s on her end of the dialogue, Heigel becomes part of the audience. Wiig’s like a jazz singer, or Christopher Walken, making everyone follow her lines word by word, wondering where she’ll put a coma or a question mark. Of course, since she’s funny, she only gets those tiny scenes in Knocked Up. Because Knocked Up is a comedy that doesn’t mind if part of the movie isn’t funny, if that part of the movie is prettier than the other parts, and if that can somehow be landed as one of the jokes. You can cast the schlubby, fuzzy slacker comedian opposite a hot chick with no comedic presence at all, as long as he mentions it off-handedly in one scene. Put it in the script that he fucked a girl out of his league, and well, I guess you have to cast it that way.

Which isn’t to say that Katherine Heigel isn’t talented or funny. I’ve only seen her in Knocked Up, so maybe I’m not the best judge. It’s a funny movie otherwise, but if it had a female lead as funny (or funnier) than Seth Rogan? I won’t list them; Movie Actresses Funnier Than Seth Rogan would keep us here all day. And, they’re all pretty enough that you wouldn’t even have to delete the mention of it in the script. Knocked Up is warmer than you’d expect, and has a big cast of funny actors in supporting roles. One of them deserved better, and didn’t get it until she wrote it herself.

No, Leslie Mann didn’t write a movie. Until she does, she’ll be on a toilet in someone else’s comedy. I’m talking about the lovely and funny (both!) Kristin Wiig, whose new movie, Bridesmaids, is the funniest movie I’ve seen since Anchorman, and stars not just Wiig, but a varied cast of women brought on board because they’re funny, period. It’s not a chick-flick. Don’t be stupid. If you tell me you didn’t see it because you don’t like chick-flicks, I will recite the plot of Knocked Up, and remind you that it stars Katherine Heigel, b-team chick-flick co-captain.

Wiig stars as Annie, as down on her luck, if not more so, than Seth Rogan in Knocked Up. Her bakery closed, she’s recently dumped, and she shares a terrible apartment with terrible roommates. She has a casual sex buddy (Jon Hamm, aggressively douchey and hilarious), but otherwise her only friend is Lilly, played by Maya Rudolph. Annie is scattered and sad, while Lilly is more grounded and thoughtful. They’re both smart though, and funny in a way movie characters seldom are: to each other. Annie and Lilly make jokes that they find funny. They don’t just mug and drop pop-culture references for the audience. The funny parts of Bridesmaids are largely conversational, which is surprising and welcome.

Lilly is getting married, and wants Annie to be her maid of honor. In a twist, one that probably shocked producer Judd Apatow, as well as all the potential chick-flickers in the audience, Annie is unhappy about the wedding, but not for the usual reasons you might find in dumber movies: She’s not jealous of the guy or the wedding. She doesn’t want to make it the altar first. She’s not somehow her best friend’s biggest enemy. Instead, Lilly’s pending nuptials highlight Annie’s loneliness, her recent failures, and her problems with money. Lilly’s happiness is setting down a new marker in Annie’s life, before she’s ready for it. I think most people can identify with that, with wanting your circle of friends to reach their landmarks together. Annie’s being left behind, and it’s causing her to reflect and to panic.

That’s a little deeper than you expected, right? Don’t worry, it’s dirty, and there are some funny shit jokes in there too. You’ll be okay.

Bridesmaids was directed by Paul Feig (the screenplay was cowritten by Annie Mumalo). At just over two hours, Bridesmaids packs in a lot of characters, and varies in style from broad to personal. The friendship between Lilly and Annie would be right at home in something by Woody Allen or Nicole Holofcener, but there are also moments of farce and slapstick. Feig keeps the movie realistic throughout the changes in tone by focusing on the characters, rather than the situations. Lilly’s other bridesmaids are perfectly cast. Among them, my favorite is Melissa McCarthy, as Megan, as straight-shooting genius with little patience for bullshit, a high comfort level with her body (and yours), and no apologies for her appetites, be they sexual or otherwise. She’s kind of punk rock, with her lack of boundaries and fears, but also comes across as a real human being. Kudos to the costumer who thought to put her in a Carpal Tunnel brace.

But Bridesmaids belongs to Kristin Wiig. She has to hit dozens of different beats, but manages them all. She has a mid-air breakdown on a plane that is neurotic and hilarious, and a similar one at a bridal shower that she tweaks just enough to also be oddly touching. She’s up to any challenge. She has rough, weird, passionless sex with Jon Hamm, but also cute small talk with a local cop (Chris O’Dowd), and roots them in the same reality. Wiig’s Annie is my favorite comedy character since Ron Burgundy, but there’s no satire to her, no heightened winking or nudging. Annie doesn’t know her situation’s funny yet, because it’s real and happening in the moment as we watch her. She’s struggling to make her life look presentable to other people, and becoming exhausted trying to defend it. What a surprise to find a character like that in a mainstream comedy that also has puke jokes and puppies.  No offense to Katherine Heigel, but if she’s wants to find a role that rich, she’s gonna have to learn to write a screenplay.

Bridesmaids: A-

Knocked Up: B-