Last night, I was at the Arclight in Hollywood seeing the press screening of “Fast Five,” and after the film, I spotted a “Bridesmaids” poster, and on the poster, a quote from my review. And certainly, I’m happy to have my words used to try to persuade people to check out Paul Feig’s rich and raunchy comedy about two friends (co-writer and star Kristen Wiig and the wonderful Maya Rudolph) who find their long shared friendship challenged when one of them sets a date for a wedding, asking the other to be her maid of honor.
Weddings in movies are rarely handled realistically, and yet, the thing that gives “Bridesmaids” its greatest power is almost painful accuracy of the way it portrays the various stresses that erupt when you’re in the midst of this sort of major sea change, and the things it does to friendships when one person is ready to move on and the other isn’t. Wiig is amazing in the film, as is Rudolph, but as with any great comedy, what holds the film together and really keeps things chugging along is the amazing supporting cast across the board.
Melissa McCarthy has her own network sitcom right now, “Mike and Molly,” and she’s one of those performers who has made a lovely career out of stealing scenes on a regular basis. But I’m guessing it will be the character she plays here, “Megan,” who becomes the most recognizable thing of her career, and that’s because of the sheer gusto with which she tears into it. Wiig and her co-writer, Annie Mumolo, originally wrote another character for McCarthy to play, but once they got into rehearsals and conversations, this is the character that emerged, and what looks to be a joke on the surface is actually one of the weirdest but most enjoyable creations in a film so far this year.
Here’s how Universal describes Megan:
Lillian”s future sister-in-law, the fight club-loving/puppy-stealing/wild card Megan doesn”t give a crap what you think of her. She”s brilliant, brutally honest and more than a little sexually adventurous..
And now, our exclusive debut of the Megan character poster:
We’re not the only site premiering a new poster for the film today. You can also find introductions to the rest of the cast all over the place. AOL Moviefone’s got the Lillian debut, while Yahoo! Shine wants to introduce you to Annie, Wiig’s character. SheKnows is all about Rita today, while MSN Movies is featuring Helen in their piece. Finally, ComingSoon wraps it up with Becca, while later today, MySpace will premiere the final red-band trailer for the movie.
That’s a whole lot of “Bridesmaids” today, and coming up next week, we’ll have interviews with the cast and with the hyper-talented Paul Feig, who directed the film. I’m so glad there’s something like this out there this summer, and I would suspect that it’s going to do great things for Kristen Wiig and the rest of the gifted cast. At least, it should.
“Bridesmaids” throws the bouquet on May 13, 2011.