Bridesmaids (2011).

Dir: Paul Feig.

Starring: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne.

I know I am very late to the party when it comes to the buzz surrounding last year's Bridesmaids, but with the recent nominations hubbub bringing this film back to the forefront of many movie websites, I decided to take the plunge and give this film a shot. I thought that as a fan of contemporary Saturday Night Live, and Wiig in particular, this film would be a safe bet for me; nothing mind-blowing, but funny enough to keep me entertained for the two hour running time.

I'll admit that the trailer for this film put me off - I didn't want to see a film that seemingly was about a woman-child throwing a jealous hissy-fit about her so-called 'beloved' best friend's wedding , while being surrounded by caricatures of 'real women' (yes, I'm talking about Melissa McCarthy's boisterous and outspoken Megan, but I'll get back to that).

Bridesmaids follows Annie Walker (Kristen Wiig), who after the collapse of her independently financed bakery , is struggling with her life. She is living with two unpleasant British people (one being Little Britain's Matt Lucas, the other being as close to an impersonation of Vicky Pollard you can get without polyester), she begrudgingly works at a jewellers, she sleeps with a man who doesn't care about her, and she is - as is the plight of practically all women in these Hollywood comedies - single. Annie annoyingly drags herself through her life as if it were perpetually ruined beyond repair, and the breaking point comes when her best friend, Lillian (Maya Rudolph), announces that she will be getting married. Cue Annie's mental breakdown; her duty as maid of honour pushes her to jealously compete with Lillian's new friend, Helen (Rose Byrne). Helen is a beautiful, successful, and graceful lady whose mere attendance in Lillian's bridal party turns Annie into a stampeding, green eyed, indignant toddler - her idiotic behaviour even sees her demoted from her maid of honour stature later in the film. Annie's tantrum hits a peak at Lillian's bridal shower after Helen presents Lillian with two tickets to Paris - Annie self-indulgently smashes her way through Lillian's lavish party with the ferocity and finesse of a rabid badger. It's just too much.

Sadly, this idea I formed following the trailer was exactly how the film was for me. I found Annie horrifically unlikeable throughout the course of the movie. I hate how her dislike for her job and for Helen can be down to Annie's jealousy and longing for a wedding - at the jewellers, Annie begins to attack a newly-engaged couple, saying that love doesn't last and how trust cannot exist in a relationship. After Annie is demoted as maid of honour, she similarly attacks a teenager who wants to buy her best friend a necklace which reads 'Best Friends Forever' - her jealously and personal problems come spilling out of her yet again, it doesn't seem to stop!

However, leaving Annie aside for a while, I have very mixed feelings about Melissa McCarthy's Megan - a character clearly intended for some form of comic relief. Megan is shown as very different to the other characters in the film; she doesn't wear make-up, her hair is almost always scraped back, and she is a big lady. She is unapologetically unfeminine, and I love that the film; I love that there is a character in there who reflects a different 'type' of womanhood. I also love that her aggression outright; Megan openly states when she is unhappy about something, rather than descending into lunacy akin to the Annie and Helen situation. What I don't love about it is that her character traits are shown as different and weird - Bridesmaids has portrayed her up as a character of ridicule, rather than choosing to display her as a perfectly normal individual, and this saddens me.

I am fully aware of how harsh I am being on this film, but let me tell you why. If you cast your mind back to last year when Bridesmaids was released, you might recall that the film was praised as a triumph for female comedies, and other similar praises. Personally, I just don't see what is funny about portraying characters as jealous and immature creatures, no matter what gender these characters are - there is just nothing funny, new or interesting about this for me. Some of these praises even involved the words 'feminism', stating that Bridesmaids was even a 'feminist comedy', and again, where did these praises come from? Nearly all the women displayed in Bridesmaids seem slyly competitive, wedding-crazed lunatics - and again, is this a new, ground-breaking way to display women? Not in my opinion. However, I cannot champion enough how it is genuinely a good thing that we are seeing women being immature and childish - I cannot even bear to think of how many contemporary comedies have men acting in the exact same way. While I did not like the film, I do like how it is turned the tables on this trend for adult-childishness in Hollywood comedies.

So, here we are - the bottom line. Is Bridesmaids truly a ground-breaking women's comedy? I honestly do not think so. On another note, do comedies really need to be segregated into women's comedy and men's comedy? Can things not just be funny and we'll leave it at that? Perhaps my qualms with Bridesmaids as a whole can be put down to the gender specific marketing and my personal dislike of selfish, childish protagonists... But perhaps Bridesmaids is - dare I say it? - overrated.