The characters in these movies wouldn\u2019t want their fates dictated by men, though, and the movies themselves should be afforded the same autonomy. Finding the self-respect to stand on their own is a key element of the protagonists\u2019 journeys in both movies, even if they still eventually end up coupled off with male partners. Those relationships are always secondary to the women\u2019s friendships with each other, which are more complex and more valuable than any romantic connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The inciting incident in both movies is the announcement of an engagement and the feigned excitement from a friend who\u2019s about to question all of her life choices. The reaction from Bachelorette<\/em>\u2019s Regan (Kirsten Dunst) to the news of her longtime friend Becky (Rebel Wilson) getting married is more vicious than that of Bridesmaids<\/em>\u2019 Annie (Wiig) when she learns that her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) is engaged, but both women are immediately sent into crisis mode. Annie endures that crisis essentially alone, while Regan\u2019s first act is to call her friends Gena (Lizzy Caplan) and Katie (Isla Fisher) to trash-talk Becky behind her back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right away, Bachelorette<\/em> seems nastier and more mean-spirited, and Headland makes it clear that these women are probably not good people. Annie is gentler and easier to like, but the emotions driving all of these characters\u2019 behavior are the same, and they all lash out in unhealthy and hurtful ways. In Bridesmaids<\/em>, that often takes the form of broad, slapstick comedy, but the effect is ultimately the same: Lillian and Becky are both left picking up the pieces of their trainwreck friends when they should be able to focus on their own major life events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As much as Regan, Gena, and Katie denigrate Becky, she\u2019s the only one who seems to have her life together, with an obviously loving fianc\u00e9 (Hayes MacArthur) and a positive attitude despite years of insults and harassment. Wilson plays the much goofier role of Annie\u2019s weirdo roommate in Bridesmaids<\/em>, but in Bachelorette<\/em> she plays the straight woman to her friends\u2019 degenerate antics. Becky serves as a reminder that maybe at one time this trio did possess genuine solidarity, something they could find again if they could stop projecting their self-loathing even for a second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The relationship between Lillian and Annie in Bridesmaids<\/em> is more balanced, even if Annie carries at least as much self-loathing as the three protagonists in Bachelorette<\/em>. Lillian is extraordinarily patient and understanding as Annie goes completely off the rails in her jealousy of Lillian\u2019s confident, wealthy, glamorous new friend Helen (Rose Byrne). \u201cYou\u2019re not fine,\u201d Lillian says to Annie with compassion when she finally relieves her of maid of honor duties, although Annie doesn\u2019t take it in the intended spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bachelorette<\/em> takes place primarily over the course of a single night, as Regan, Gena, and Katie frantically attempt to repair the wedding dress they\u2019ve carelessly damaged before Becky has to wear it the next day. They experience just as much growth as Annie in a much shorter period of time, ending up in the same shakily hopeful position. Their lows are lower, and Headland revels in their destructive behavior, taking them to some truly dark places that Annie would never go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When Annie mixes pills and alcohol, she makes inappropriate outbursts and gets escorted off a plane. When Katie does the same, she passes out and nearly dies. Annie\u2019s biggest self-indulgence is the elaborate baked treats she used to make at her now-shuttered cake shop. For Gena and Katie, the equivalent vice is huge amounts of cocaine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet their reactions to similar situations often mirror each other, just to different degrees. At Lillian\u2019s engagement party, people keep mistaking random men for Annie\u2019s nonexistent husband, and she awkwardly demurs. Gena\u2019s response is much stronger when someone refers to her as \u201cMrs.\u201d at Becky\u2019s rehearsal dinner: \u201cI\u2019m not married, and I\u2019m not an adult, either.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n These women are <\/em>adults, though, and they\u2019re not just reflections of the kind of stunted man-children familiar from Bridesmaids<\/em> producer Judd Apatow\u2019s successful bro comedies. Their growth comes from actually facing up to their issues, from understanding that their actions are hurtful, and that there are real people suffering the consequences of their irresponsible behavior. Bachelorette<\/em>\u2019s sense of humor is darker, but both movies pull off an impressive tonal balance, sometimes blindsiding the audience with affecting emotional moments amid the comedy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s funny when Annie berates a teen girl looking for a \u201cbest friends forever\u201d necklace at the jewelry store where she works, but it\u2019s also an honest expression of her self-doubt. There\u2019s morbid humor in Katie plaintively asking, \u201cYou had an abortion without me?\u201d when Regan references helping Gena end a pregnancy, but it also contains true anguish and heartbreak. It\u2019s easy to laugh at these women, and that also makes it easy to care about them. The specificity of the characters and their struggles resonates longer than any trend these movies were supposedly setting or following.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both \u201cBridesmaids\u201d and \u201cBachelorette\u201d are streaming on Hulu beginning April 1.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two vulgar comedies about bridesmaid-zillas explore toxic insecurity with humor and insight. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":539,"featured_media":19909,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399],"tags":[1422],"class_list":["post-19907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","tag-looking-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/539"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/bachelorette-1024x682.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Helen, of course, is just as desperate and insecure as Annie, stuck in a seemingly loveless marriage with a pair of stepkids who hate her. Her coping mechanisms are different, but she\u2019s overcompensating just as much as Annie is, and it\u2019s only when they drop their respective facades that they discover how much they have in common. Helen would probably connect more with Regan, who takes on the role of maid of honor with hyper-focus, meticulously managing every detail of Becky\u2019s wedding until one disaster threatens to derail the whole event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n