Cats & Dogs: CATS and TOGO

Cats is questionable on every level you can imagine: narrative, musical, aesthetic, anatomical. Only a movie so convinced of its tony, glossy, respectable, good-taste nature could fail on all counts so completely. It’s some kind of amazing. Those who set out to make a midnight movie inexplicable on purpose will be jealous, standing in awe for a true blue unintended wild pitch, a cracked cult classic in the making. I’m almost glad it exists for no reason but that there’s nothing else like it. It’s boring and fascinating, confusing and striking in equal measure. If it was an obscurity dug up decades hence — think bonkers musical movies past like The Apple and so forth — we might be better prepared to take its sheer unlikely collection of bad decisions as quaint eccentricity rather than an assault on our senses. It’s both, of course.

Built from one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s most dubious musicals to begin with, the picture matches the stage version’s patchy story and sluggish pace. It’s about a group of cats milling about on the night of their yearly ritual in which their pseudo-supernatural queen (Judi Dench, so good she’s believable) chooses one lucky cat to die and be reincarnated. While they await her decision, one cat at a time steps forward and performs a little song and dance introducing their name and some quality they posses. There’s an abandoned young cat (ballerina Francesca Hayward). There’s a cat that lays around all day (Rebel Wilson), one that eats garbage (James Corden), another that likes milk (Jason Derulo) — all normal cat behavior. Then there’s a cat that rides on a train (tap dancer Steven McRae), and one that sits in a theatre (Ian McKellen). Fair enough. Then there’s a cat that’s a magician (Laurie Davidson) and a cat that’s some sort of evil sorcerer (Idris Elba) with a slinky henchwoman (Taylor Swift). The lonely old cat (Jennifer Hudson) is the best, because she gets to sing the musical’s one good song — “Memory,” the only one anyone unfamiliar with the stage production has heard going in. That’s the full extent of the movie, a weird shapeless thing faithful to its oddball roots. And yet what elevates it — or lowers it, your milage varying — is every cinematic decision that compounds disbelief by the second. Director Tom Hooper, of The King’s Speech and the excellent musical Les Miserables, demonstrates powers of mad erratic imagination his earlier, safer prestige projects have heretofore shown little inclination toward.

He shoots it on a big unreal stage in scope from low angles, accentuating the feline perspective, and then proceeds to populate the proceedings with singing and dancing CG-human hybrid monstrosities straight from the uncanny valley. They are not the stage’s leotard and makeup creations; nor do they use digital wizardry to transpose motion-captured movie stars into the bodies of vaguely realistic cats. It’s instead a layering of digital fur over the bodies of the performers so that we have plenty of time to consider the human form ensconced in this animal texture. They never look like cats, and never like people. Instead of a digital extension of the artifice provided by stage makeup, it gives long close-ups and medium shots of expressive dancing and emotive singing an odd push and pull. How often do we actually stare at quivering lips and wrinkling noses as they fill the frame? We also get long opportunities to trace the contours of the muscles in hips and torsos as they ripple under artificial skin? The dancer’s posteriors, too, are distractingly human under long, twitching tails, in bodies both real and unreal, human and not. Their bodies are only further accentuated by the cats occasionally wearing snazzy little hats or coats, drawing attention to their otherwise completely bared fur. What a marvelously unhinged visual distraction, appealing and revolting in equal measure, depending on the movement or the camera angle. It’s an image of partially-real creatures — too human to be cat, too cat to be human — dancing in partially-real sets — occasionally extending into gleamingly fake city streets where the cats are either half the size of an average person or a fourth of the size of the average house pet. It’d be worth seeing if it wasn’t put to use for such baffling lack of effect for production numbers that rarely add up to much in a story that never coheres for characters that never develop. What an expensive boondoggle. It sure is something.

Far more conventionally satisfying animal filmmaking is Togo, a humble based-on-a-true-story programmer slipped out onto Disney+ in the shadow of splashier family fare at the multiplex this holiday season. If you recall Universal’s 1995 animated picture Balto, about a sled dog racing to deliver much-needed medicine into the wilds of 1920s Alaska, you know the gist, although this movie will tell you Togo did far more than him. Here Willem Dafoe is a stoic human face guiding his good dogs across the wilderness as the children of small town Nome sit afflicted with diphtheria, a fatal diagnosis if left untreated. He’s the sort of sensitive, stubborn man so driven, and so good at inspiring his dogs, that he’ll holler one of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches over the sound of the whirling winds and cracking ice. Flashbacks fill in the details of the lead dog’s life, as he goes from an energetic pup in need of training to an underdog with the unlikely spirit and skill to lead the team through treacherous terrain at the behest of his kind owner. It’s a dog story, a real adventure told with low-key pace, rugged faces against awesome landscapes, natural hues, and beautiful nature-photography appeal. Director/cinematographer Ericson Core has a keen eye for these details. There’s great Jack London verisimilitude to the real dogs and settings, and the progression through the details of making such a journey at such a time with these resources. We meet a variety of grizzled characters and see tenderly realized portraits of townspeople doing what they can to help. And we see the toll it can take on those who do good despite the odds, even after their deeds are done. Throughout there’s great skill and tension on display, a driving forward momentum pinned to its elemental man (and dog) versus nature tale. It has a quiet, patient sense of narrative and emotional clarity as pure and simple as the task at hand. Just goes to remind you there’s nothing like a good old fashioned story told cleanly and simply.

Sing It On Again: PITCH PERFECT 2

Pitch Perfect 2 has a winning sense of pleasant reunion. The sequel to the surprise hit a capella college comedy from a few years ago carries with it a delight to be back. Surely no one expected that sloppy but likable little comedy to do well enough to support a follow up, but here we are. It returns to the world of the Barton Bellas, an all-female a capella group made up of unlikely misfits last seen winning the national title. Picking up three years later, Becca (Anna Kendrick), Chloe (Brittany Snow), Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson), and the rest (Ester Dean, Hana Mae Lee, Alexis Knapp, Chrissie Fit) are on the verge of graduating, but find their final year off to a bad start with an embarrassing performance in which one of their members accidentally moons the Obamas. This gets them kicked out of the world of a capella, setting up another underdog scenario to be overcome by winning the World Championship to get reinstated. Once again, the young women must learn to work together and create a great routine, all the while dealing with their individual eccentricities.

Luckily, screenwriter Kay Cannon isn’t content to repeat the structure of the first movie. In fact, she seems to realize generic let’s-put-on-a-show and campus comedy plotlines were holding the otherwise amiable predecessor back. She knows for an encore the audience just wants to hang out with likable performers doing their shtick in between good music. The result is a movie that’s looser, longer, sillier, with more music and funnier lines. It’s the rare comedy sequel that’s actually an across-the-board improvement instead of a safe repeat of a known formula. The need to win the big championship is a climactic goal, but everything leading up to it is simply excuses for pleasant banter, funny supporting roles, silly gags, cameos, and fun musical numbers, featuring everything from Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus to Sir Mix-a-Lot and Kris Kross.

Making her directorial debut, Elizabeth Banks (who also, with John Michael Higgins, returns as a color commentator) moves the proceedings with a good pace and fine eye for smooth pop filmmaking. It’s episodic, with plenty of digressions including romances (Skylar Astin and Adam DeVine make appearances) and professional concerns (Keegan-Michael Key shows up as a record producer). But it never drags as the bright, bouncy, colorful, and consistently amusing movie zips along on slick competence providing good-natured, high-spirited, undemanding entertainment. We see a series of misadventures, from clashes with the terrifyingly perfect German group Das Sound Machine to a new freshman recruit (Hailee Steinfeld) struggling to fit in, and an underground a capella battle held in a rich fan’s basement (featuring everyone from Reggie Watts to John Hodgman to a few Green Bay Packers).

It could be scattered, but there’s a nice emotional throughline involving female friendships and the group’s importance to its members that gets a heartwarming payoff in their final performance. Along the way, Banks and her cast find funny bits of business in every scene. Whether we’re with Snoop Dogg recording a Christmas album or camping in the woods on a team-building exercise, it’s enjoyable enough to be worth the detour. It’s only a matter of time before Wilson crashes in with a loopy one-liner, Kendrick gets a flustered retort, or one of the supporting players pipes in with a goofy barb. The movie plays to everyone’s strength in that way, before drawing all the voices together in beautiful harmony for ensemble numbers that really sing. They work well together, and as a result it’s fun to be around them no matter where the plot takes them. With a favorable hit-to-miss joke ratio, this is a big crowd-pleasing comedy that’s essentially nice and easy to like.

Dumbbells: PAIN & GAIN

Michael Bay is Hollywood’s preeminent vulgarian. With movies like Armageddon and Transformers, he specializes in slick imagery that turns a gleaming gaze on people and technology with the same slobbering glee, an objectification that turns everything into button-pushing jolts of spectacle, collateral damage, and queasy humor that leans on distasteful stereotypes more often than not. This sometimes leads to enjoyable movies, sometimes not, but it certainly makes him the right person to direct Pain & Gain, a based-on-a-true-story caper about some lunkheads with big small dreams who basically imagine themselves the heroes of their own Michael Bay movie. His proudly juvenile adrenaline machines in which an outsized id runs free through a glamorously ugly caricature world fits with a story so grotesque and unbelievable it simply must be true (or at least exaggerated from the truth).

The action takes place in Miami during 1994 and 1995. There at the time Bay was filming his feature debut, the cop buddy action comedy Bad Boys. So, alas, Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg), the main character of this movie, instead cites Rocky, Scarface and The Godfather as his cinematic motivation. He, conveniently forgetting the ultimate fate of the protagonists of those films, thinks of them as good examples of guys who made something of themselves, something to aspire to as he prepares to chase his American dream: lots of money, lots of things, and lots of pretty women. He has what he thinks is a great get-rich-quick plan, a sure-fire all-American, get-what’s-coming-to-him windfall. When questioned about his scheme he says, “I’ve watched a lot of movies. I know what I’m doing.”

And what is Daniel's plot? He has happened to gain a new client, rich jerk Victor (Tony Shalhoub), who walked into Sun Gym looking for a personal trainer. He’s the kind of guy who says, “You know who invented salads? Poor people.” He’s not a nice guy. Daniel's idea is to recruit two of his co-workers, the steroidal Adrian (Anthony Mackie) and the born-again Paul (Dwayne Johnson), to help kidnap Victor, make him sign over all his assets blindfolded, and then return him to his routine unable to do anything about it. That sounds easy enough, if rather implausible and with countless details that need to be worked out. But Daniel doesn’t seem to notice those and his partners in crime don’t ask many questions. They all think they’re about to get rich beyond their wildest dreams. Here’s a group of guys smart enough to cook up a scheme, but too dumb to get away unscathed.

The script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely gives us overlapping narration from all three men and their victim, giving us four perspectives on the events as they unfold. The dissonance between the confidence they constantly speak to us and each other, the pumped-up sheen of Bay’s filmmaking, and the string of dumb decisions they proceed to make provides a recipe for a savage pitch black comedy. When things start to go wrong, as you know they must, it turns into a kind of humid, sun-baked Fargo. (There’s a nasty bit of business with a pile of dismembered limbs that rivals that film’s wood chipper scene.) Bay shoots it all with a smug satisfaction, snickering at these meatheads for buying so whole-heartedly into the American dream of having it all and getting away with it that they can’t see it’s a lie with which all truly successful people learn to compromise. Early on, Wahlberg attends a lecture from a transparently phony motivational speaker (Ken Jeong) and leaves feeling nothing but starry-eyed confidence. Yes, he thinks, even he can make his dreams of obscene wealth come true. That he should go about it in a brutal, haphazard, illegal way is a source of the humor, but in the insistence that perhaps he’s a fool to try anything at all, the film is cynical, nihilistic social satire to its core.

There are no heroes here. The criminals are misguided lugs impossible to root for. Their victim is a smarmy slimeball who’s impossible to wish victory upon. Bay puts the audience in the sometimes uncomfortable position of simply watching the gears of plot turn on these awful people. The late edition of a private eye played by Ed Harris as a weary pragmatist and the only person of professional competence in the whole movie and as such seems to be subtextually shaking his head at the sad weirdness of it all, like Tommy Lee Jones in No Country for Old Men, does much to help cut through the ugliness. But what sometimes beautiful ugliness! Bay’s muscular showiness is put to good use here, laying out tawdry, glittery lifestyles of the almost rich and gaudily infamous-in-their-own-minds, lives that play out sadly in gyms, strip clubs, and on Floridian beaches.

There’s huge entertainment to be had in the rapid-fire montage that keeps the pace speedy throughout the entire two-hour-plus runtime and the collision of light performances with the heavy dark violence and vulgarity. Instead of risking the audience lose track of his satirical point, Bay makes it quite clear that he’s in on the joke. As brutish satire, it makes its jabs early and finds only ways to repeat them thereafter. Luckily the performers (I haven’t even mentioned fun supporting roles filled by Rob Corddry, Bar Paly and Rebel Wilson) are agile and funny and the story itself is strange and unpredictable enough to keep things interesting. It’s a credit to the great cast, twisty plot, and Bay’s aggressively watchable, just-shy-of garishly colorful style that I didn’t grow tired. I didn’t love it or loathe it, but I think I had fun.

Sing it On: PITCH PERFECT

Pitch Perfect is a light, inconsequential comedy about college a cappella groups. That’s, as the movie is quick to tells us again and again, when people perform fully orchestrated songs with only their mouths. The movie is basically wall-to-wall music; even the Universal logo’s theme gets a dramatic vocal spin before the movie begins. The whole thing is peppy, bouncy, and scattered. It has a collision of standard plotlines: the let’s-put-on-a-show, the underdog-team-of-misfits and the follow-your-dreams, as well as some standard college comedy and rom com material. And yet, on some level it works. With the sheer likability of the cast and the strength of the melodies, it just about gets by, a little bit nerdy, a little bit sassy, and a little bit dirty.

We follow adorable Anna Kendrick as a too-cool-for-school aspiring D.J. who wants nothing to do with Barden University’s down-on-its-luck all-girls group. But wouldn’t you know it? She joins anyways. The leaders of the group (Anna Camp and Brittany Snow) are unhappy after a disastrous performance at last year’s a cappella finals and don’t think this year’s applicants bode well for their chances this time around. Aside from Kendrick, the girl with talent even she doesn’t quite realize, this is a ragtag group of weirdoes with standard goofy traits, roughly sketched. The one real comedic gem of the bunch is Fat Amy. As she explains, she calls herself that so skinny girls don’t have to say it behind her back. She’s played by Rebel Wilson (you might remember her as Kristen Wiig’s roommate in Bridesmaids), who brings a committed confidence to her very strange character.

As it so happens, the girl group has a heated rivalry with last year’s winners, an all-boy group who, surprise, surprise, attend the same college. That the two best a cappella groups in the country come from the same school is funny, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be a joke. It’s just narratively convenient. The leader of the boys (Adam DeVine) is a real jerk, but there’s a sweet guy among them too. He’s played by Skylar Astin and it’s quickly apparent that he’ll be paired off with Kendrick for the duration of the film, first as endearingly antagonistic competitor, then as buddy, then as…well take a wild guess. Anyways, the two groups march through the qualifying rounds with a routine inevitability. There’s no tension to the competition sequences. (They’re not funny either, despite John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks playing what is essentially Fred Willard’s role from Best in Show.) Of course both teams will make it. We’ve got to keep hearing them sing.

Much like Bring It On, the Kirsten Dunst cheerleading comedy from, sheesh, over a decade ago, did for its chosen extracurricular activity, Pitch Perfect is a movie that makes much out of its easily recognizable, but somewhat insular, world, coining the kinds of phrases that will be surely quoted in school choir rooms and a cappella groups for years to come. (“A-ca-what?” That sort of thing.) The plot of the movie is largely interested in watching the students practice routines, argue about song choices, clash with rivals, grow closer together through singing, and performing. It’s a good thing that these songs are well done. They’re easy to listen to and often brought a smile to my face and a tap to my toes. The actors are all fine singers (and/or were dubbed or auto-tuned to perfection) and bring some fine charisma to their characters’ stage presences.

But let me be clear. This is a sloppily made movie. It is basically a distended sitcom pilot, and not even a particularly good sitcom either. Director Jason Moore and screenwriter Kay Cannon are both making their feature debuts after working for years in television, so it’s somewhat understandable if not entirely excusable. The movie is visually indifferent with a large ensemble that remains mostly background as the leads act out standard plots and relationships that don’t quite pay off. There’s even a little joke late in the game in which two mostly anonymous supporting characters are forced to remind one of the main characters that they’ve “been here the whole time.” The personalities may sell a lot of the zippy jokes, but other times, like in a particularly gross scene involving a big puddle of vomit, the writing feels miscalculated.

A handful of key moments between characters seem to happen unseen between scenes and a large part of the middle of the storyline contains scenes that could probably be shuffled in any order and still work (or not) just as well. I’m sure there are endless alternate takes and deleted scenes on the proverbial cutting room floor with this one. Still, I must say I found myself enjoying it slightly more often than not. And judging from the loud giggling I heard in the theater throughout the entirety of the movie, I’ll bet it’ll find a spot in many slumber party viewing rotations for at least the next few years.

Unevolved: ICE AGE: CONTINENTAL DRIFT

Scrat is a bushy-tailed prehistoric squirrel who desperately desires an acorn that’s forever out of his reach. He’s a wordless, frustrated figure of bumbling slapstick with a Looney Tunes style of elegance to the purity and consistency of his motivations and adventures. Like Wile E. Coyote, Scrat’s his own worst enemy. It’s his insatiable desire for the unattainable that drives his worst impulses past self-preservation, his every inconvenience made all the more frustrating since, unlike the Road Runner, an acorn can’t even knowingly outwit him. But as much as I love Scrat, he’s simply not a good enough excuse for Blue Sky, the animation studio owned by 20th Century Fox, to keep churning out the Ice Age movies which contain within them his antics, presenting them as half-connected scenes that run parallel to the main story.

Once again we’re back with Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo), Manny the mammoth (Ray Ramano), and Diego the saber-toothed tiger (Denis Leary), who first became an unlikely herd all the way back in 2002 in the good-enough film that started this whole thing. This time around, as ever, the trio finds that the world is experiencing a rapidly changing climate. Ice Age was about the coming Ice Age. Its sequel, 2006’s The Meltdown, was about a big thaw. In 2009, the third sequel left all real geologic history in its dust with Dawn of the Dinosaurs. At least in this new one, Ice Age: Continental Drift, Sid lets us know how ridiculous that was, saying, “It didn’t make any sense, but it sure was exciting!” And it was, I guess, at first, although by the time the dinosaurs were gnashing their teeth and chasing the characters to and fro I had already gotten tired of it all. I was tired of the series sometime after my second or third viewing of Ice Age, or maybe it was during my first and only time through the waterlogged Ice Age 2. The series sure has a way of making massive climate change seem like no big deal. Then again, that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise as the oil companies have been doing just that for years.

So maybe I’m not the ideal audience for Continental Drift, but then again, maybe it will mean all the more when I say that it’s adequate. It, like Dinosaurs before it, comes the closest to capturing the very low charms of the first picture. I sat there while the sound and color danced around the screen and though I wasn’t exactly involved in the antics, I didn’t hate it either. Though I thought for sure the movie was ending at it was only the halfway point, I still ended up getting a modest jolt of entertainment during the actual hectic climax. So there’s that. The animators, under the direction of Steve Martino and Mike Thurmeier, are certainly talented and they have this particular cartoon universe down pat. I like the color and personality of it all, with exaggerated movements and nonplussed anachronisms. (And need I reiterate just how much I enjoy our fleeting moments with the strong, wordless frustration of Scrat?) I just wish that someone involved (maybe Michael Berg and Jason Fuchs, the credited writers?) could have thought up something more than halfway diverting to happen with it all.

In this installment, the continents are rapidly shifting and Manny is separated from his wife (Queen Latifah) and teenage daughter (Keke Palmer). Adrift on a chunk of ice with Diego, Sid, and Sid’s cranky, senile granny (Wanda Sykes), the group is accosted by furry pirates – a monkey captain (Peter Dinklage) and a crew containing a saber-toothed tiger (Jennifer Lopez), a rabbit (Aziz Ansari), a seal (Nick Frost), and a kangaroo (Rebel Wilson) – who are a big danger despite and because of their knowledge of the way back home. Speaking of back home, Manny’s wife and daughter are leading to safer ground a group that includes a hedgehog (Jake Gad) who has a crush on the younger mammoth (how’s that work?) and a group of cool teen mammoths (where are their parents?) with the voices of Drake and Nicki Minaj.

This is all pretty standard family film plotting with little to these new characters’ personalities beyond sight gags and standard-issue villainy and little added to the old characters beyond the new situations. There are typical father-daughter disagreement-healing, self-esteem-crisis-solving, stereotype-refuting, family-togetherness-affirming plot threads running every which way through the movie in ways that hit every point on the moral checklist in uncomplicated family film fashion. There’s no imagination here, no chance to let the story build or develop in any interesting way whatsoever. It just clunks from plot point to plot point, hitting all of its rote emotional beats while that nutty squirrel blasts through every once in a while to keep things entertaining, even if only for a minute or two at a time. Otherwise, it all feels so lifeless, written and performed (with the exception of Sykes and Dinklage who are new to the series and so aren’t bored with it all yet) as if an enormous machine had spit out what it guessed humans like best about these kind of movies.

Playing right now at a theater near you, there are good to great movie choices for nearly every demographic. But say you’ve already seen all of those, or maybe your power went out and you need a cool place to sit for a couple of hours. You could certainly do worse than Ice Age: Continental Drift, an adequate movie that gets exactly where you think it’s going without anything too especially surprising or enjoyable (other than Scrat) along the way, but there’s nothing to out-and-out dislike either. It’s blandly harmless. Somehow, I don’t think I’ll get quoted in an ad with that.

Something Blue: BRIDESMAIDS

While the plot is set in motion by the announcement of an upcoming wedding, Bridesmaids is anything but a typical wedding comedy. It focuses not on the couple – the groom, in fact, has barely a line of dialogue in the entire picture – but on female relationships instead. It’s directed by Paul Feig (creator of Freaks and Geeks) and produced by Judd Apatow, but the true auteur here is Kristen Wiig, who co-wrote the film with her friend Annie Mumolo and stars as the maid of honor. This is a sometimes very crude R-rated film in which women are allowed to be raunchy and rowdy, to be both beautiful and silly, even in the same instant. It’s a broad comedy with nicely observed friendships and competitions between these recognizably human characters.

In the film, Wiig plays a woman whose longtime best friend (Maya Rudolph) is happily ready to be married. But, unfortunately, Wiig’s life happens to be falling apart. Closer to 40 than 30, she has a failed business, a dead-end physical relationship with an emotionally distant jerk (Jon Hamm), and two deeply strange roommates (Rebel Wilson and Matt Lucas) who would very much like it if she could either pay the rent or move out. Her mom (the late Jill Clayburgh in her final role) isn’t much help. That last thing Wiig wants to do is move back in with her mother, but that seems to be an increasingly necessary option.

She clings to her relationship with her soon-to-be-married friend, even as it picks up a slight strain under the pressure of the impending ceremony. Weddings can be expensive and are full of situations ripe with the potential for massive social embarrassment. Wiig plays a woman completely unprepared for this stress, especially with the added strain that comes in the form of Rudolph’s new friend (Rose Byrne), a wealthy, glamorous lady for whom party planning and social graces seem to come naturally. It’s clear from the moment that their characters first meet that Wiig and Byrne are on a collision course.

The film walks through the various events leading up to the big day, from an engagement party to dress fittings, the bachelorette party and a wedding shower. At every turn, events get weird. Propriety breaks down. Strange faux pas pop up. Feelings get hurt. Along for the ride are the rest of the bridesmaids, a naïve newlywed (Ellie Kemper) thoroughly dazzled by the concept of a wedding, a weary mother (Wendi McLendon-Covey) who evokes the state of her chaotic household by mentioning that the other day she broke a blanket in half, and a jolly goofball (Melissa McCarthy) who seems to grow ever more cheerfully strange with each passing scene.

This is a comedy with several great scenes, the kind of hilarious moments that provoke squirm-in-the-seat, tears-down-the-face, jagged-breathing laughter. There’s an engagement party toast that becomes a slow build of increasing hilarity, as it becomes an elaborate game of one-upmanship between Wiig and Byrne. There’s a pristine, glowing, high-end dress shop which is the perfect setting for a sequence of unbelievably, hilariously gross mass gastrointestinal crisis (“I need to get off this white carpet!”). There’s a flight to a bachelorette party destination that becomes the perfect enclosed space for a jittery flyer to devolve into crazier and loopier goofiness. These sequences start small and are allowed to build momentum until part of the humor is that the embarrassment is still going on.

Through all of these moments, the very funny cast of scene-stealers keeps stealing scenes out from under each other, but Wiig looms large above them all. She has a rubbery elasticity, not just to her face and physicality, but to her emotional state as well. She’s a normal person with a life that’s falling apart, being slowly driven insane by extra pressures of social situations going horribly awry. It’s very comical, but what makes it all the more funny is that it’s built upon believable character relationships. Wiig and Rudolph have an unforced naturalness that seems to spring from a real, deep friendship. Wiig and Byrne clash in ways that feel specifically truthful in the passive-aggressive ways they play out. (There’s even a sweet romance between Wiig and a lovely cop played by Chris O’Dowd that is surprising in both its effectiveness and its relative lack of screen time).

Unlike terrible recent wedding-themed comedies that are, at least partially, about female friendships, like Bride Wars, which plays like some man’s awfully reductive and retrograde concept of how women relate to one another, Bridesmaids is a comedy by women and benefits from the sparks of truth that drive the story. It’s a bit long, sometimes uneven, but it more than makes up for it by laying out convincing groundwork for sequences of high flying vulgarity that occasionally turns into complete and total comic pleasure.