Saturday, August 13, 2011

Netflix Recommendation: Bridesmaids

If you're looking for a totally escapist movie, this is a good one. It's fairly raunchy, but I have to say there are laugh out loud moments. The story centers around two life-long best friends, one of whom is finally getting married and one of whom is not, is broke, just closed a failed business, but she is maid of honor.
It becomes a love triangle with the addition of the bride's other new friend, the very wealthy wife of her husband-to-be's boss who has all the money, all the connections, all the time to do all those things for the bride that the maid of honor should do -- the lifelong friend tries and just can't compete.

My two favorite moments are: 1) At the very beginning, the boss's wife gives this lavish engagement party in their perfect mansion and she asks the maid of honor to give a toast. Our girl (you clearly root for her) gets up and gives this lovely, simple toast about how they've been best friends and wishes her all the best.

Not to be outdone, the rich wife then takes the microphone and one-ups this toast with one of her own. They then go back and forth with the microphone as the toasts escalate. It's so subtle and so funny. At one point the rich lady talks about being in Thailand and learning an ancient Thai toast and says the rest of the toast in Thai. Our girl can't one-up a Thai toast, so she tries to summon her high school Spanish and makes no sense in what she's saying, and it's really funny.

2)The maid of honor picks this restaurant for a luncheon in a bad neighborhood, but swears the food is great. Well, from the luncheon, they go on to this very fancy bridal salon to pick bridesmaids dresses and they all come down with sudden food poisoning as they are picking the dresses. Everyone *(which includes all of us) who have ever wondered whether they will make it to a bathroom and which end to aim at the toilet will just cringe and laugh with all of them fighting for the one toilet as you hear these horrible rumbling stomach sounds.

So this is not Ghandi nor the English Patient, but it's very funny. There's a subplot about the maid of honor and her new romance which I could have done without, but this is definitely worth a rental. I'd give it three out of four stars. That means, rent it, but you don't necessarily have to do it immediately! One warning: it opens with a graphic sex scene but that's the only one in the movie.

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