If there’s one valuable lesson to be learned in life, it’s that best friends can sometimes be your worst enemies even if they’re your BFFs.
Such is the fundamental premise of Leslye Headland’s freshman offering “Bachelorette” which is based on her well-received play of the same name.
Portly Becky (Rebel Wilson) is all set to marry the handsome but immemorable Dale and it’s up to feisty careerist Regan (Kirsten Dunst) to handle the maid of dishonor duties starting with four-alarm phone calls to high school buddies Gena (Lizzy Caplan), a smart-ass, sarcastic bohemian and Katie (Isla Fisher) a ditzy party girl.
Becky and Regan form the core of the clique but it’s only because BFF in their case means Bulimic Friends Forever.
2012 Gary Sanchez Productions, BCDF Pictures, Weinstein Company, RADiUS-TWC
Even after Becky finds out that a wasted Regan and Katie destroyed her wedding dress by trying to squeeze into it for a Facebookesque photo op, Becky can only reminisce about the times she and Regan spent in high school puking up lunch in the girls’ room.
Much raunchier than kindred chick flicks like “Bridesmaids” or anything starring Jennifer Aniston, one could probably say with fair accuracy that “Bachelorette” is more like a raunchier version of “Sex in the City” meets “The Hangover.”
The “Sex in the City” similarities go right down the principals sporting the same hair color too–two blondes, a redhead and a brunette.
Headland, better known as a TV and screen writer of the soon-to-be-released “About Last Night” and “Terriers,” a 20th Century Fox Television and FX Network co-production, pulls out all the stops in the one-liner department.
As the girls frantically search for tailor to repair Becky’s dress, Headland lets loose with zinger after zinger in a script that is tight and punchy―as in punch to the gut.
Casually relaxed pronouncements using the C-word and B-word are peppered throughout the tight 90-minute romp.
A perpetually tooted-up Gena lets her cell phone go to voicemail with a greeting that prompts the caller to “Eat a d**k.”
Katie overindulges at the reception and gradually spirals into a drug-and-drink-induced stupor.
“I don’t know what to do around people I really like, either sleep with them or get really drunk,” she relates.
After Katie overdoses on Xanax paramedics are called.
And with only minutes to spare before the wedding and no wedding dress in sight, a frazzled Regan chastises an inflexible wedding planner who notes that the cascade of mishaps aren’t on the itinerary.
“Providing a fucked up b*tch wasn’t on the itinerary either,” Regan snaps.”It’s Manhattan on Saturday ―five minutes is like 30 minutes.”
With a goofy wedding band and an eclectic soundtrack borrowing from the classics, 80s and 90s, “Bachelorette” is blisteringly uneven in parts but in a wickedly entertaining way if you can look past the vulgar language and cancer and bulimia references.—Steve Santiago
4th Dimension Films 