There's an easy comparison to make with the Sundance-premiering Bachelorette. On the surface it looks like an inevitable indie riff on 2011's blockbuster Bridemaids. But where that film used the wedding model as a platform for raunchy, mainstream comedy, Bachelorette exists on a whole other twisted, sadistic level. The movie aims for laughs mined from life's tougher hardships, from bullying and addiction to abortion, anorexia and suicide. A risky move, but writer/director Leslye Headland makes the important choice never to curb the film's morbid sense of humor in any instance. Unfortunately, the commitment is only sporadically effective, making Bachelorette one of the festival's most fascinating misfires.
Bridesmaids fans will find the movie's opening scene eerily familiar: during a lunch date, know-it-all Reagan's (Kirsten Dunst) entire life is thrown into a tizzy after her friend Becky (Rebel Wilson) announces she's engaged. The two are half of the self-proclaimed B-Faces, a high school clique even more judgmental than the Plastics from Mean Girls, but Becky's success hits Reagan especially hard—how could their fat friend get hitched before her!? Six months later, Reagan has assumed the position of maid of honor, reuniting with her old friends Gena (Lizzy Caplan), a snappy coke fiend, and Katie (Isla Fisher), a ditz with suicidal tendencies, for a low-key bachelorette party. The night inevitably turns into anything but.
The main characters of Bachelorette are abhorrent people. They belittle one another, drive each other off the edge and revel in their own misfortune. For whatever reason (OK, it's because they're conventionally beautiful twigs), the men of the wedding (played by Adam Scott, James Marsden and Kyle Bornheimer) take a liking to them—only propelling their own skewed perspectives. When their drug and alcohol infused afterparty results in the destruction of Becky's wedding dress (Reagan and Katie realize their friend is large enough they could both fit in her gown), the subsequent adventure is about saving their own asses, rather than helping their friend. None of this is by accident—Headland explores the wicked lives of these women, a trio who slowly expose their own vulnerabilities, but are entirely grating along the way.
Bachelorette is a tough cookie because its parts are so strong. Headland's script is the film's sharpest asset, with colorful insults spit out at lightning speed and complicated characterizations never straying from reality (however abrasive they may be). Dunst is perfect as the queen bee with a stare that could kill a small animal, while Isla Fisher again proves herself one of the comedy world's most important female players. And even among an ensemble of hilarious heavy-hitters, it's Bornheimer who never falters, providing warmth and good-natured laughs as a schlub who falls for Fisher's Katie. It also helps that he's the only reasonable human being in the bunch.
The problem is in the execution: Bachelorette's style, pacing and tone are never on the same page, resulting in a sloppy final product. The movie portrays unlikeable leads, but rushes through the action we need to understand them. The middle of the film, a race through the streets of New York, carries no weight, no consequence that doesn't feel conjured up then shrugged off. And everyone the trio encounters—a dress seamstress, dancers at a strip club, the mother of Gena's ex-boyfriend—is the target of their insults. Funny at first, tedious by the halfway point.
Bachelorette doesn't spoon feed us anything, but barely gives us a spoon to feed ourselves. Headland unleashes her three unlikeable characters into a world of chaos and whips up some outrageous comedy in the process. But it's not enough—the toxic characters suffocate any positive moments in the movie. Not a fun ceremony.
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