Movie Reviews

IT HAS been hailed as The Hangover for women, but Bridesmaids (16s) deserves to be judged on its own merits.

To watch it as any kind of female version of another movie is to miss the point of what co-writer and star Kristen Wiig sets out to achieve. Yes, it’s a case of women behaving badly, as five bridesmaids gather to see Lillian (Maya Rudolph) through the rollercoaster experience of preparing for her big day. And yes, it’s very funny to watch the ladies abandon any pretence to a sisterhood solidarity as they scramble to establish themselves in Lillian’s affections, the better to bask in her reflected glory.

The central conflict is ostensibly between Annie (Wiig), Lillian’s childhood and lifelong friend, and the effortlessly elegant Helen (Rose Byrne), Lillian’s new VBF and a woman whose extravagant lifestyle and domestic bliss is sharply contrasted with Annie’s failure to make a go of her bakery business, and Annie’s futile attempts to convince her current squeeze, Ted (Jon Hamm), to commit to a relationship that goes beyond the bedroom door.

The real conflict, however, exists within Annie herself, as she obsessively compares herself to Helen, all the while making an absolute hash of organising Lillian’s dress-fitting, bridal shower, and bachelorette party. You don’t have to be a woman to realise how unhealthy Annie’s mindset is, or to find Paul Feig’s movie funny in a bitter-sweet way. The dreaded dress-fitting scenario for the bridesmaids is a case in point. Most chick-flick movies would be happy to embarrass the bridesmaids with a series of meringue-style dresses in psychedelic colours, but Wiig and Feig push the boundaries, investing the scene with a knockabout element courtesy of food poisoning, which in turn causes all kinds of eruptions of a gross nature. Wiig and Feig gradually tease the scene into a surreal and mortifying scenario involving a pristine wedding dress and a woman on her knees in the middle of the street. Meanwhile, Annie’s stuttering relationship with State Trooper Nathan (Chris O’Dowd) gives the movie a touching romance.

As with many of the comedies produced by Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up), Bridesmaids would have benefited from some rigorous editing, but overall it’s an endearingly offbeat comedy that delivers plenty of laughs.

COUNTDOWN To Zero (PG) is a documentary on the history of nuclear weapons that is rather more terrifying than its PG rating suggests. Lucy Walker’s Waste Land (2010) confirmed her as a thoughtful director of documentaries that are offbeat in tone and content, but Countdown To Zero goes straight for the jugular as it examines the state of the nuclear weaponry landscape today, detailing the horrifying number of warheads on the planet, and investigating the equally horrific prospect of a nuclear bomb falling into the hands of a rogue state or terrorist organisation. Opening with footage detailing the ease with which depleted uranium can be smuggled out of former Soviet states, Walker splices together contributions from famous talking heads and members of the public with footage detailing the evolution of the atomic bomb, the Cold War stand-off, and the rise in the number of countries who now possess nuclear capability. The film ends on an upbeat note as it surveys the ongoing campaign at the highest levels to eradicate all nuclear weaponry, but aspects of this compelling film are the very stuff of nightmares.

CANADIAN twins Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette) travel to the Middle East in Incendies (18s), after a reading of their mother’s cryptic will, to deliver a package to the father they thought was dead, and the brother they never knew they had. The backdrop is that of the Lebanese conflict, but Denis Villeneuve’s film offers a tortured journey to the heart of a hard-won compassion. The pace is slow, as Villeneuve concentrates on an intense exploration of characterisation over plot, but a viewing will prove unusually rewarding. On limited release.