Netflix Finds: Bachelorette

While scouring Netflix recently in an attempt to find a mindless and amusing movie to tide me over during finals week, I happened upon Bachelorette. The Bridesmaids comparisons have been thrown around a bit, but unlike that film, this one’s actually a little dark.

The film centers around Regan (Kirsten Dunst), Gena (Lizzy Kaplan), and Katie (Isla Fisher) who’ve been best friends since high school. When the fourth member of their posse, Becky (Rebel Wilson), announces she’s getting married, the others agree to be a part of the wedding. Sounds like a fun time, right? Wrong! Becky’s wedding brings together a lot of old acquaintances and bad memories from high school for everyone. As maid of honor, Regan tries to run the show with a firm hand, but she cannot prevent the drugged out hijinks of Gena and Katie on the night before the big day.

Once those two get coked up, they proceed to ruin the bride’s evening with their immature antics. When Becky storms out of the bachelorette party in her hotel suite because an unexpected stripper accidentally calls her by her high school epithet “Pigface,” the three remaining friends show little remorse and proceed to get wasted. In a drug-fueled haze, Regan and Katie have the great idea to step into Becky’s wedding dress together to ridicule her plus-size frame like they did in high school. Needless to say, it rips, and the girls are forced to spend the rest of the night in a frantic race around town to fix it, making their way through a strip club, an ex-boyfriend’s house, and a rendezvous with a groomsman.

Don’t go into this movie expecting to laugh your ass off. For a good chunk of the time, the main characters are so unlikeable and petty that you actually begin to resent them. But in evoking such strong emotions from the viewer, the film presents itself as more of a black comedy than anything. The characters are as pitiful as they are obnoxious, and we learn that there is clearly pent up emotional baggage that compels each one of them to act the way they do.

For example, Regan is so uptight and, frankly, kind of scary in her need for control. But the truth is that she  feels like her life isn’t going the way she planned, and she’s scared to accept that she can’t base her happiness around having a successful boyfriend or graduating from a great school. On the other hand, Gena went through a messy breakup with her boyfriend, Clyde (Adam Scott), back in high school and still hasn’t gotten closure on why he abandoned her in a time of need. This film has its flaws, but it definitely holds a more realistic quality than some other recent partying-centric fare.

There weren’t too many laugh-out-loud moments for me, but I did appreciate the fast pace of the film. Even at the points when I started to despise the characters, I was still invested enough to continue watching. Yes, the girls were irritating, but who says characters always have to be likable to make a good movie? The language is sharp and raunchy and reflects the girls’ tendency for covering up their vulnerabilities with abrasive exteriors.

Overall, Bachelorette is an entertaining movie and stands out amongst its peers for daring to be a somewhat unforgiving portrayal of women in all their flawed glory. So don’t be shocked if it’s not as frivolous and heartwarming as you might have been led to believe by some of the promos.