Rating: R | Runtime: 125 minutes
Release Date: May 13th, 2011 (USA)
Studio: Universal Pictures
Director(s): Paul Feig
Writer(s): Kristen Wiig & Annie Mumolo

Hold on for one more day.

The best thing a comedy can do is exceed expectations and prove you don’t need to show all the funny parts in the trailer to sell people into coming. Kristen Wiig and co-writer Annie Mumolo achieve this with their “stone-cold pack of weirdoes” gearing up for the bride-to-be’s wedding day.

Following in Tina Fey’s footsteps as “SNL” star turned feature film comedy scribe, Wiig branches out from the tv sketch show with help from Judd Apatow and his gang that includes director Paul Feig to bring the R-rated Bridesmaids to screens. Similar to The Hangover in its raunchiness and pre-marital theme, the film also has the luxury of reaching both sides of the gender fence by giving the boys a little rom-com and the girls a little gross-out vulgarity.

Wiig and Mumolo are equal opportunity offenders and thus should see massive success at the box office. I hope they do too because smart, witty, and laugh-out-loud work such as this is what’s needed to show Hollywood still has what it takes to deliver original work worthy of our time. Despite utilizing common genre tropes with a fair share of vomit and excrement, they somehow find a way to keep it fresh.

The motley crew at the center consists of Wiig as Annie, the Maid of Honor for best friend since childhood Lillian (Maya Rudolph); the bride’s cousin Rita (Wendy McLendon-Covey); co-worker Becca (Ellie Kemper); soon to be sister-in-law Megan (Melissa McCarthy); and Helen (Rose Byrne), the usurper of power and affection. While the movie is meant to show Annie’s evolution from down-in-the-dumps at rock bottom to hopefully having some semblance of a satisfying life set against the backdrop of a wedding chock full of love, jealousy, envy, and vanity, the fun stuff lies in her rivalry with Helen—a clash of heavyweight attention grabbers searching for gold.

Pitted on opposite sides with Annie having no money or handle on etiquette and Helen possessing a full checkbook and years of aristocratic conditioning, the two are quickly revealed to be quite similar. Their jockeying for position at Lillian’s side breaks from good-humored spotlight hogging into vicious sabotage without any regard for the consequences. This battle only pulls Annie down further to conversely bring the laughter to a rising crescendo.

McLendon-Covey and Kemper add to the shenanigans with their mirrored outlooks on life. The former’s marriage has become rutted in routine as the sewage of parenting rising to the surface. The latter lives in an idyllic fantasy land of happily ever after to naively travel forwards without worries. And McCarthy steals every scene with her butch façade (a contrast to her typecast saccharine sugar) and nymphomaniac tendencies towards any man with a pulse (poor Ben Falcone … or perhaps not considering what goes on during the end credits).

Rudolph is great as the bride, always trying to cut through the craziness with the two women she loves most. She’s often unable to cope with the mental breakdowns unfolding around her, but still able to put her game face on for a little Wilson Phillips dance-off. And Byrne, the villain of this tale, excels with her pristine sheen of perfection via a permanent smile and nonplussed demeanor. She must even prove she’s a graceful crier to maintain zero blemishes.

No matter how great this supporting cast proves, it really is Wiig’s show. She handles the role with aplomb—she did write it, after all. Even surrounded by that talent (along with a cascade of cameos from the likes of Rebel Wilson and Matt Lucas as European imbecilic roommates, Terry Crews as a drill sargeant fitness instructor, and an uncredited Jon Hamm once again forcing the world to wonder how he landed his very serious role on “Mad Men” despite his penchant for comedy), Wiig ends up on top with a mix of self-pity, neuroses, and insecurities to make her likably vulnerable, familiarly loathsome, and extremely relatable.

She’s the everywoman toiling through the life she’s built, taking every misstep as a complete catastrophe she is unable to push through. She punishes herself by staying in a psychologically abusive tryst with a jerk who cultivates a torturous cheapness she’s tragically accepted. She brings her problems into work at a new job as a jewelry counter clerk, driving every customer away. She refuses to bake after her bakery dreams were shattered by the recession. And she can’t help but self-sabotage any new relationship. Annie is a complete mess.

With hilarious bits like an airplane ride’s concoction of prescription drugs and scotch, a waltz of vehicular transgressions montaged to garner the attention of a state trooper, and a food-poisoned dress fitting, it’s impossible not to embrace the laugh-out-loud vibe. Casting “IT Crowd” star Chris O’Dowd as the romantic interest for Wiig is inspired too, breathing another gust of fresh air onto the proceedings with his Irish accent and sarcastic wit. Because it’s fun when a film subverts the gender dynamic with a sensitive man looking for love from a woman donning the mantle of blanket male casualness and fear of commitment.

In this way, Bridesmaids unabashedly portrays the intrinsic cattiness and absolute blind love between girlfriends with the sense of feminine sexual yearning generally ignored as taboo in most “chick flicks.” These women are empowered at the same time as they’re afraid of what comes next. They are three-dimensional eccentrics with a wealth of comedic range to prove Wiig has a finger on today’s comedic pulse to out-Hangover The Hangover in the process.

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(L to R) WENDI MCLENDON-COVEY, ROSE BYRNE, KRISTEN WIIG, MELISSA MCCARTHY, MAYA RUDOLPH and ELLIE KEMPER in BRIDESMAIDS. In the comedy, Wiig stars as Annie, a maid of honor whose life unravels as she leads her best friend, Lillian (Rudolph), and a group of colorful bridesmaids on a wild ride down the road to matrimony. Photo Credit: Suzanne Hanover Copyright: © 2011 Universal Studios. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.