Bridesmaids...
SPOILER ALERT: If you have not seen this movie before and still harbor some desire to see it and be surprised at the events, don't read this. Otherwise, read on, for the following rant is, in a word, scintillating. (If I do say so myself.)
So, I watched the movie "Bridesmaids" last night. My overall reaction to the movie was... underwhelmed. I don't think I laughed once (unless you count gasping in horror at the awkward progressions of whatever-can-go-wrong-will-go-wrong-all-at-once). The focus of the movie is not so much on the dynamic of the bridesmaids' relationships with each other/the bride, like I thought it would be. The main character is not the bride but the maid of honor, and the movie spends most of its time predictably taking us from one shitty occurrence in her life to the next, hammering securely into our brains the fact that she is a total loser with no people skills and no self esteem. By the way, most of these shitty occurrences start out having nothing to do with her being a maid of honor, and then once she enters that role, the shitty occurrences shift to involving everything to do with the wedding. Drama galore.
I find movies in which Murphy's Law reigns with total plot dictatorship to be unrealistic, uninteresting, and uncomfortable. This movie is one such. The first scene is one in which the main character shows us what a complete doormat she is. It's a sex scene, and the only way that sex scene could have been more uncomfortable to watch would have been if Jack Nicholson had been in it. We learn that the man our heroine has just been with is a rich bachelor just using her for sex. That's how the heroine is introduced--as someone people walk all over. From now on, I shall refer to her as the Doormat.
The Doormat's life is not great, but not terrible, either. She's got a job at a jewelry store (which she does not enjoy) and a long-standing best friend. The Doormat can apparently bake, as well--she had a bakery at one point, but since being a small business in New York City is extremely difficult, we are not terribly surprised that it had failed a while back (she and the best friend walk past her former storefront at one point). Her mom is the humanitarian type, who tries to help her daughter out whenever she can (which the Doormat doesn't usually let her do).
The best friend breaks the news she's engaged and names the Doormat maid of honor. The other bridal party members are introduced at the engagement party--a motley crew, as we expected. One girl in particular clashes with the Doormat immediately, because this girl, hereafter to be called Bitchcake, is successful, gorgeous, and fake. All the other bridesmaids are unimportant, except for the short, frank, and crude sister of the groom, who shall be called the She-bear. Explanation to follow.
The Doormat and Bitchcake don't get along primarily because the Doormat feels not only upstaged but replaced by Bitchcake in her friend's affections. Most of the awkward ugly drama regarding the wedding happens because of this perceived rivalry.
Anyway, here it is, the progression of shitty occurrences after the Doormat's MOH status is achieved and confirmed: she loses her job (which is COMPLETELY AND UNAMBIGUOUSLY her fault), she gets kicked out of her apartment by her deranged British roommates, she gets into a car accident because her taillights haven't been fixed in months, she gets drunk on the plane ride to Vegas for the bachelorette party (which, incidentally, was Bitchcake's doing) and gets summarily arrested and kicked off said plane, and she throws a fit at the BF's wedding shower and gets herself demoted and uninvited to the wedding. Oh, and she completely blows things with the only real potential love interest who's showed up.
So, how does our karma-wracked heroine deal with all this? By doing basically nothing. She wallows in self-pity, moves in with her mom, and spends her days watching Cast Away and feeling sorry for herself. The She-bear shows up and makes a show of talking some backbone into her, which prompts her to bake an apology cake for the potential love interest (who, by the way, has been urging her to get back to baking this whole time), who rejects it. Then, something happens where Bitchcake shows up at her door, and I won't go into that whole fiasco because it was awkward and stupid, but the end result is that she ends up getting to see her best friend again, on the day of the wedding. Mind you, she didn't set out with a firm determination to see said best friend and make up. No, she ended up there on accident, because she had to give Bitchcake a ride back to the best friend's apartment. They end up reconciling, though, and she helps her friend into the dress, everything's forgiven, blah blah blah. Bitchcake somewhat redeems herself by getting the love interest to forgive the Doormat and come pick her up after the wedding is over. They kiss and make up, ride off together, and that's the end.
Here's my problem with this whole movie. At the end of the movie, the Doormat has not stopped being a doormat. She has not resolved to make any effort to change her life, she has not decided to go back to baking, she has not even decided that she's a worthwhile person that deserves to be happy. So why should we, as the viewer, decide that about her? She's still awkward, with scum-of-the-earth low self esteem, and SHE did not fix her love life, someone else did it for her. The important things that happen in this movie are mostly things that happen TO her, not things that she herself set in motion. She's spineless, and I kind of despise her. The end.
Okay. Glad that's over. More later, I got shite to do.
So, I watched the movie "Bridesmaids" last night. My overall reaction to the movie was... underwhelmed. I don't think I laughed once (unless you count gasping in horror at the awkward progressions of whatever-can-go-wrong-will-go-wrong-all-at-once). The focus of the movie is not so much on the dynamic of the bridesmaids' relationships with each other/the bride, like I thought it would be. The main character is not the bride but the maid of honor, and the movie spends most of its time predictably taking us from one shitty occurrence in her life to the next, hammering securely into our brains the fact that she is a total loser with no people skills and no self esteem. By the way, most of these shitty occurrences start out having nothing to do with her being a maid of honor, and then once she enters that role, the shitty occurrences shift to involving everything to do with the wedding. Drama galore.
I find movies in which Murphy's Law reigns with total plot dictatorship to be unrealistic, uninteresting, and uncomfortable. This movie is one such. The first scene is one in which the main character shows us what a complete doormat she is. It's a sex scene, and the only way that sex scene could have been more uncomfortable to watch would have been if Jack Nicholson had been in it. We learn that the man our heroine has just been with is a rich bachelor just using her for sex. That's how the heroine is introduced--as someone people walk all over. From now on, I shall refer to her as the Doormat.
The Doormat's life is not great, but not terrible, either. She's got a job at a jewelry store (which she does not enjoy) and a long-standing best friend. The Doormat can apparently bake, as well--she had a bakery at one point, but since being a small business in New York City is extremely difficult, we are not terribly surprised that it had failed a while back (she and the best friend walk past her former storefront at one point). Her mom is the humanitarian type, who tries to help her daughter out whenever she can (which the Doormat doesn't usually let her do).
The best friend breaks the news she's engaged and names the Doormat maid of honor. The other bridal party members are introduced at the engagement party--a motley crew, as we expected. One girl in particular clashes with the Doormat immediately, because this girl, hereafter to be called Bitchcake, is successful, gorgeous, and fake. All the other bridesmaids are unimportant, except for the short, frank, and crude sister of the groom, who shall be called the She-bear. Explanation to follow.
The Doormat and Bitchcake don't get along primarily because the Doormat feels not only upstaged but replaced by Bitchcake in her friend's affections. Most of the awkward ugly drama regarding the wedding happens because of this perceived rivalry.
Anyway, here it is, the progression of shitty occurrences after the Doormat's MOH status is achieved and confirmed: she loses her job (which is COMPLETELY AND UNAMBIGUOUSLY her fault), she gets kicked out of her apartment by her deranged British roommates, she gets into a car accident because her taillights haven't been fixed in months, she gets drunk on the plane ride to Vegas for the bachelorette party (which, incidentally, was Bitchcake's doing) and gets summarily arrested and kicked off said plane, and she throws a fit at the BF's wedding shower and gets herself demoted and uninvited to the wedding. Oh, and she completely blows things with the only real potential love interest who's showed up.
So, how does our karma-wracked heroine deal with all this? By doing basically nothing. She wallows in self-pity, moves in with her mom, and spends her days watching Cast Away and feeling sorry for herself. The She-bear shows up and makes a show of talking some backbone into her, which prompts her to bake an apology cake for the potential love interest (who, by the way, has been urging her to get back to baking this whole time), who rejects it. Then, something happens where Bitchcake shows up at her door, and I won't go into that whole fiasco because it was awkward and stupid, but the end result is that she ends up getting to see her best friend again, on the day of the wedding. Mind you, she didn't set out with a firm determination to see said best friend and make up. No, she ended up there on accident, because she had to give Bitchcake a ride back to the best friend's apartment. They end up reconciling, though, and she helps her friend into the dress, everything's forgiven, blah blah blah. Bitchcake somewhat redeems herself by getting the love interest to forgive the Doormat and come pick her up after the wedding is over. They kiss and make up, ride off together, and that's the end.
Here's my problem with this whole movie. At the end of the movie, the Doormat has not stopped being a doormat. She has not resolved to make any effort to change her life, she has not decided to go back to baking, she has not even decided that she's a worthwhile person that deserves to be happy. So why should we, as the viewer, decide that about her? She's still awkward, with scum-of-the-earth low self esteem, and SHE did not fix her love life, someone else did it for her. The important things that happen in this movie are mostly things that happen TO her, not things that she herself set in motion. She's spineless, and I kind of despise her. The end.
Okay. Glad that's over. More later, I got shite to do.