It’s a script review, so I guarantee spoilers or your money back.
How It Works
First read this. Next download script here. Read by next Friday and post your lovely head musings in comments. It’s almost as easy as Michael Fassbender in Shame.
Bridesmaids
Screenplay by Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig
109 Pages
I ‘d marry it.
Yes, I have a lot of love for Bridesmaids and obviously the credit goes to to Mumolo & Wiig for writing such a fantastic script – however you cannot overlook the contribution of producer Judd Apatow. Our protagonist Annie walks a very similar path to the heroes of Apatow’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up – characters who all struggle to face-up to the responsibilities in their lives. That being said I think Bridesmaids is superior to both because at the centre of the story is a great protagonist.
Annie is a carefully-crafted character who could have easily become unsympathetic due to her behaviour (especially her later treatment of Lillian and Rhodes) however we like her because 1) she’s funny and 2) tragically flawed – Annie won’t allow people to help her because she won’t help herself. As Megan tells her:
…I do not associate with people that blame the world for their problems cause you’re your problem Annie, and you’re also your solution. You get that?
Annie chooses to rent an apartment that she cannot afford with a horrible brother and sister rather than moving-in with her kind mother. She’s a terrific cake-maker yet rather than trying to make that career work she settles for a job she hates so much she can’t even fake liking it. Annie’s in a terrible relationship with Ted who treats her awfully yet when she meets nice-guy Rhodes she runs from him the moment he tries to help her pick her life up.
By the end of the second-act a writer’s aim is to have their protagonist at their lowest point – Mumolo & Wiig certainly achieve that with Annie. She has lost her job, her home, the one man who cares for her and ironically her best-friend. Losing Lillian is what Annie (irrationally) fears most and her actions throughout the story are her way at trying to stop it happening yet it’s these deeds that end up creating a rift in their friendship.
I would always argue that Annie’s biggest antagonist in the story is herself however the presence of Helen is the catalyst for most of her poor choices. Breaking Bridesmaid into three stages, I first thought Lillian announcement of her marriage was the story’s inciting incident however I now think it’s the introduction of Helen. She is rich, beautiful, cultured and married consequently Annie feels threatened that she may replace her as Lillian’s best friend.
My favourite scene in the screenplay is between Annie and Helen as they try to out-do each other in giving Lillian’s engagement toast – it’s funny and also sets up the conflict that will go on during the rest of the story. Yet despite coming across as mirror opposite they both are driven to win Lillian’s friendship because they both have the same fear of being alone. Helen has no other friends, her husband is away most of the time and her step-kids hate her.
Of course Annie’s fear of losing Lillian to Helen is ill-founded because at the end of the story Annie saves Lillian wedding because she has one thing Helen does not – she really “knows” Lillian.
Annie and Helen aside – there’s some other nicely-written characters like Ted and Rhodes however it’s Megan who really shines. Like Alan from The Hangover she’s a bit of an oddball and the source of a lot of humour yet she’s no idiot – she’s the one responsible for making Annie finally see sense.
Stylistically I thought the script was a quick and easy read for 109 pages – plenty of white on the pages. Interestingly character descriptions (with the exception of ages) were non-existent except for the more “extreme” characters like Ted, Helen, Megan but even then it was still no more than a line. Yet these brief descriptions quickly helped us get a handle on them.
Annie and Lillian stand with MEGAN, 30′s, tomboyish, looking a bit odd in her floral dress.
Even reading the script it still comes across as very witty – the dialogue is sharp and in places laugh out loud funny. I know some reviewers objected to the the gross-out humour that comes from the dress-fitting set-piece but it is very well written and made me smile just from reading it. Even tiny details like Megan stealing the puppies from the bridal shower amused me. Yet despite all the comedy crammed into the script it never got in the way of the story.
So what didn’t work for me? I did think some of the more dramatic dialogue involving Rhodes and Annie and Megan and Annie as they try and talk sense to her was a bit too much on the nose. Also, and, this could be partly due to the poster as it suggest they have a large part to play in the story but I felt Rita and Becca were underdeveloped as characters. The practically disappear from the final act and was left wondering if they were going to start a romantic relationship together.
The above though are minor grumbles as I really liked this script. With the exception of Crazy, Stupid, Love, Bridesmaids was my favourite comedic screenplay of 2011. Smart and intelligent it’s more Apatowian than even Judd Apatow.
Next Week
I’m as serious cancer when I say we’ll be reading 50/50.
Have to admit to not seeing this film – and walking past the poster for it with my gaze firmly ahead, pink, bridesmaids…
Early impression – I was glad to see some sex. I think sex scenes are a great way of showing personality, status, relationship dynamics etc, and the morning after awkwardness gives us a direct line into Annie.
Then we meet Lillian and we’re firmly in the ‘kooky self-damaging single female lead needing to grow up and find the right man in an independent kind of way whilst finding out how important her female friendships are’ genre, and I kind of went – bleugh. All the impressions made by the poster confirmed. (Though I have to admit I read this hot on the heels from reading Diablo Cody’s Young Adult, and perhaps I was suffering overload of this genre.)
However the dialogue is quick and smart, and I loved lines like, ‘I’ve seen better tennis playing in a tampon commercial’. And agree the characters, although some familiar stereo-types, are drawn very quickly and effectively.
Agree also about the inciting incident – though reading my Blake Snyder – the pg 25 ‘something big happens’ could quite easily fit with Helen winning the first round of the ‘I’m Lillian’s best best friend’ competition, which sends Annie spiralling downwards.
Liked how the relationship/wedding theme is brought up. Particularly early on: the rings in the shop; her mother’s long-lived resentment of her husband’s new wife; the assumptions that Annie’s with someone at the party.
Annie’s skill at cake-making – and the real bit of herself which shines and attracts Rhodes – also ties in nicely with the wedding theme.
Overall the script reads really well and after my initial hostile reaction I found myself drawn into it and actually getting upset for Annie on occasion.
The disastrous action scenes were a little lavatorial for my taste, and the predictability of the outcome was lessened by stretching the premise from being sick in the bathroom to the shitting in the street.
Did feel a little let down by the plane trip though. Thought they’d have some time in Vegas, and it felt a bit of a cop-out to have them all return so quickly.
At the end Lillian coming to her senses and having a wobble then everyone hugging and making up was inevitable and unfortunately predictable but the ride was enjoyable and I the characters likeable. It definitely gave me laughs than I thought it would.
Disclosure: Haven’t seen the movie, but was familiar with certain scenes and some of the actors that were chosen for the film from promos, and had also watched a version of the teenage girl-Annie “battling” scene at the ring shop.
Generally, I found the script very bare. That made it quick and easy to read, but it felt like it lacked somehow…Overall, I’d argue that the only well-developed character was Annie. The beauty of it is that that was enough. That was all that was needed for the movie to work.
I can’t say I would describe the dialogue as witty, but there were two funny scenes that worked for me. One was the speeches scene. It built up nicely to the final moment where after Helen has gone over the top mentioning that Thai saying, Annie comes up with her response which ended with her speaking in Spanish. When I read that one it felt like a great desperate move from Annie which emphasized the comedy in it, but in retrospect it also works as a nice mocking comment from Annie to Helen’s outrageous efforts to “win” over Lillian, which also adds to the “funny”.
Subtleties like these along with the end scene where Lillian realizes that everything WAS over the top, to the point where her parents couldn’t even afford the wedding, made it all wrap up nicely in terms of making Annie’s character be sympathetic and not hated, since everything else about her efforts to get Lillian back ended up too badly for everyone to be funny or were funny in a very dry, black-humor kind of way.
Scene number two was the bridal shop-toilet scene. I did laugh at that one even though I’m not a fan of this kind of humor. I think what worked was the rapid succession of the events, plus the contrast of the shop, the owner’s character and what ended up happening in the toilet, not on the street.
As for Megan’s character, she was given all these funny moments that didn’t seem to be all that funny when reading the script, but in all probably added to the humor in the movie. Made me wonder how they went about casting her, given the virtually no description in the script. I think they went for the actress who could really pull off the comedy. I agree that Megan was the equivalent of the Alan character. On that note, I think I’ll agree with the “Better than the hangover” quote on the poster, probably because even though there was an “Alan” in Bridesmaids, there was no “Annie” in the Hangover.
Overall, I found the story flowing nicely and wrapping up OK in the end, so didn’t find any problems with that. The only thing that kind of threw me off was some Annie scenes in the beginning of the script. Most of them were really brief, they added to the character and moved the story along, but I found them disjoint. Made me really curious to see how they ended up filming those.
This is a really good script, tightly written and genuinely funny. But I had the luxury of reading it having already seen the movie. So I could picture the actors, the facial expressions, the physical comedy and hear the delivery of the lines. And I wonder how much of a difference that makes. Like I say I still think it’s a superb comedy script. But it’s a reminder of how important casting is as well I think and the extra percentage an actor brings to what’s on the page.
Thanks for your thoughts guys.
I think they cheated on the script a little as this probably isn’t the shooting script. Instead I think they’ve produced another draft for Awards season that includes the improvised dialogue that was used for the finished film.
Here’s a link to an article that explains the power of improv, how the character Megan came about and why there’s no Vegas scene in the finished film. I think it highlights Jez’s comment about “the extra percentage an actor brings to what’s on the page”. Or in Melissa McCarthy’s case what’s not on the page originally.
http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201108/melissa-mccarthy-gq-august-2011-bridesmaids