Bridesmaids

Directed by Paul Feig

(R)

***

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“R-rated female-centric, gal-pal entertainments don’t exactly top studio wish lists,” said Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times. So we probably have producer Judd Apatow’s considerable influence to thank for ensuring that this movie’s “ensemble of witty twisted sisters” ever saw the light of day. The real standout among them is Saturday Night Live’s Kristen Wiig, also the film’s co-writer, who plays an “increasingly unhinged maid of honor” spinning out of control in the run-up to the wedding day of her best friend (Maya Rudolph). Wiig’s talent for physical comedy would certainly “win the respect of Lucille Ball,” said Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. What might surprise Lucy is that this movie has allowed the bride’s entire wedding party to be “the equal of men in vulgarity, sexual frankness, lust, vulnerability, overdrinking, and insecurity.” So what if “a few scenes misfire and the whole thing goes on a bit too long,” said Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal. Bridesmaids taps into so many emotional truths with such “deceptive ease” that if this is what a chick movie is, “call me a chick.”