Bachelorette

Synopsis:  When "Pig Face" Becky (Rebel Wilson) announces her engagement, her three unmarried high school friends (Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Caplan and Isla Fisher) are miffed but ready to bachelorette-party like it’s 1994.

I am not in the target demographic for Bachelorette so perhaps that group, which appears to be single and wannabe-single 30-something women looking for a brainless night out, would rate Leslye Headland’s debut film more highly than I. If you are not one such woman, then I advise doing something else with your time and money than seeing this film, at least at the theatres.

There are films which are made because the makers have something to say and there are films that are made simply to make money. The latter group takes already commercially proven material and produces cheaper versions, rather like the way $2 Shops flog items that ape more expensive, longer lasting equivalents.

Bachelorette is a $2 Shop film. It copies the tried-and-true wedding comedy template, tries very hard to be gross-out funny and leaves you wondering what the heck the director has on Kirsten Dunst that got that deservedly well-regarded actress into this mess. Being banged in the ladies toilet by a Kevin Dillon lookalike is no feather in her cap.

Dunst gives a harsh performance as super-bitch Regan who, with skanky, coked-up friends, Gena and Katie, manage to rip Becky’s wedding dress the night before the wedding and try to get it fixed in the wee small hours of the morning. If Ms Headland’s script has any merit it is that she manages to spin this slim premise out for over an hour. Unfortunately this largely comes down to the women running around frantically hurling profanities right, left and centre – the sort of thing which would be funny as a single scene but loses traction beyond that. Flavour-of-the-month Aussie actress, Rebel Wilson who appeared in two gross-out wedding comedies last year, Bridesmaids and A Few Best Men, offers the only point of relief in this contrived crudity.

Headland, who adapted her own stage play, tries to balance things our with a matching trio of guys but not only are they similarly tried-and-true types and uniformly dull, the actors are disconcertingly cheaper versions of better originals. In addition to James Marsden's Kevin Dillon (whom already you cast when you can't get his better-looking brother, Matt) we have a Seth Rogan act-alike (Kyle Bornheimer) and a Mr Bean (Adam Scott), who is improbably paired off with the mad-for-it Gena.

The whole shebang is slapped together in a perfunctory fashion which shows little flair for pacing and none for nuance. Being addle-pated would not just help with appreciating Bachelorette – it should be a required condition for ticket purchase..

 

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