Bridesmaids

Written at the time of the film's release...

"The Miss of Sisyphus"

or

"Wiiging Out"

First off, Kristen Wiig is scary. She's scary funny. And scary smart. It's an almost sure thing that she'll be the best thing in whatever she appears in (certainly that was true of MacGruber). She has no Dolby and no squelch in her comedy, the filters are off, and she's not afraid to look like a doofus. In fact, I don't think she's afraid of anything.

And because she co-wrote this and is primarily the focus for the vast majority of Bridesmaids, it is a pretty funny, raunchy comedy of the "incredible mess" variety. And who doesn't want to see a wedding fail (especially if its not yours)? That's the premise behind this film (for better and for worse), and I've been to and/or been involved in enough weddings to know that this could easily have been a documentary.* The various rituals and ceremonies that precede, pre-function and prevaricate the actual hitching of one individual to another, are enough to wreck any marriage before it begins, and I'll frequently pontificate that if you survive the wedding, the marriage just might make it.**
And I've been to one wedding where in the course of the pre-functions, the Maid of Honor was replaced in the Bride's affections by another friend, as happens here. It happens.

Said Maid of Honor, who by herself is an "Incredible Mess," is Annie (Wiig), who has zero self-esteem, is dating a self-absorbed creep (naturally, as he's a man, played by an un-credited Jon Hamm—who, bless him, seems to be having fun)—except it's not really dating so much as an empty sexual convenience, she's lost her specialty bakery business, and is working at a jewelry store, where her tirades about the impermanence of all relationships has a tendency to drive the customers away. Her mother (Jill Clayburgh—her last role before she died of cancer) wants her to move in with her "before she hits rock-bottom," because her room-mates are British and creepy. At least she has her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph), who is always good for a meltdown de-briefing.

That is, until Lillian announces her engagement and asks Annie to be the M of H.  Then, like a black hole, the downward spiral that is Annie's life starts to suck in the wedding arrangements, as well. She gets together the other bridesmaids: Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey), a bitter wife with two problematic kids; Becca (Ellie Kemper) a chirpy newlywed; Megan (Melissa McCarthy—hilarious and fearless), the groom's sister; and Helen (Rose Byrne), a trophy-wife, who is needy, tries too hard, and is aggressively perfect. This eclectic gaggle of women are tough to corral and all approach life and their duties to the bride-to-be differently, leaving the slightly scattered Annie dishonored and in their wake of agendas. In her desperate attempt to get them all on the same page (or even in the same dress-style), she only makes things worse, especially for herself.

The only non-crumbling structure in the whole disaster area that is her life is a state patrol trooper (Chris O'Dowd—think the looks of Tim Allen, the charm of Judge Reinhold, and the accent of Craig Ferguson) but that gets doused as well. Pretty soon, rock-bottom seems like a pretty stable place to be, as she loses everything, even an invitation to the wedding.

This would be intolerably sad, if the cast and writers didn't make it so hellaciously funny, in a surprising, raunchy manner that rains humiliation down on everyone, the highlight (possibly) being the visit to a posh, expensive bridal shop after a dysentery-inducing exotic pre-function. It's cruel...like watching a train-wreck, where all the passengers were caught in the bathroom, but it is funny—humor, one must caution, being subjective.

I'd be heartily recommending this movie*** if it didn't go all-"Oprah" in the last section, with a tone-scrambling heart-felt ending that one is just not prepared for, and it also coasts on my most hated of rom-com tropes—"all she needs is a good man. Really? I'd've said a good psychotherapist.

But, until that time, Bridesmaids is the most snortingly funny disaster movie I've seen in a long time.

* I just had a two-hour conversation with someone who participated in a recent June wedding, where everything went flawlessly, but the backstage story was an on-going apocalyptic disaster from start to finish.

** That's an incredibly sunny view, considering I've been married twice.  On the other hand, there was one wedding I went to where the bride and groom were already arguing...at the altar.  The reception was dominated by placing wagers on how long it would last.

*** And have, to two gals who wanted a movie-night and were, understandably, less-than-thrilled with the current movie selection.  They couldn't be two more different people.  Both loved it.

Jojo Rabbit

Dann Sind Wir Helden
or
"Gesundheit" (Definitely Not a Good Time to Be a Nazi...)

Ah, satire.

You can't win with it. There are going to be people who say it goes too far and there are going to be people who say it trivializes horror and injustice and there are going to be people who say it doesn't go far enough.

Which means that it's pissing people off and that's just right. It's doing its job. Autocrats of all stripes do not like satire. And they won't like New Zealand director Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit, either. 

That's alright. Autocrats don't deserve to have a good time.

Waititi might be new to some, his most popular movie being Thor: Ragnarok, which brought a breath of fresh jovial air to the most atrophied of the Marvel Universe series, but his earlier works, Boy, What We Do in the Shadows, and Hunt for the Wilderpeople showed an anarchic sense of comedy and film-making that was fun, heart-warming, and refreshing. He makes darn fine films, even if the silliness in them might discourage one from thinking so.

But, Waititi's free-form adaptation of the first half of New Zealand author Christine Leunens' "Caging Skies" is one of those approaches where to go all out silly might be the antidote to a story that is, on the face of it, about cruelty, inhumanity, and the depths of evil that human beings and a complacent society can sink into.

"I am Jojo Betzler. I am 10 years old...today, I will become a man." That traditional line of a Bar Mitzvah is turned on its head, as Johannes (Roman Griffin Davis) is dressing for his first day on his way to becoming a man, thanks to a camp to train Hitler Youth, run by Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell). It is a dream of the scrawny young Jojo to do well at the camp for his ultimate dream is to be made part of the honorary guard to his hero, Adolph Hitler (Taika Waititi) himself. It should be a shoe-in, as the Fuehrer is already an imaginary friend of Jojo ("Heil me, man!") appearing in times of confusion and distress to provide simple advice that a 10 year old boy might understand ("People used to say a lot of nasty things about me: 'Oh, this guy's a lunatic' 'Oh, look at that psycho, he's going to get us all killed!'").

Johannes lives with his mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) who is skeptical of his devotion to Nazism while maintaining a sunny disposition, despite her husband being missing from the household. Johannes thinks he's fighting for the Nazis in Africa, but his Mom remains mum.

The Hitlerjugend Camp is run—if that is the term—by Klenzendorf, a hard-drinking, not very competent soldier who has clearly been given an assignment he can't screw up, let alone harm the floundering war effort. He barks the rhetoric with a slightly cynical weariness, wears the uniform not too nattily (while secretly designing something a little flashier if highly unregulation), knows he's been benched from anything important, but is a good little soldier who does his duty ("Even though we're losing the war, everything seems to be going fine...").

Jojo does not have an easy time with the prospective Hitlerjugend. He can salute precisely, has a force-fed hatred of the Jews (of whom he knows nothing about and who take on mythic properties), but even the worst of best intentions does not necessarily translate to actions. When he is picked out to kill a rabbit by strangulation, he can't do it, and is mocked mercilessly by the trainers and his fellow acolytes, with a new name pointing out his weakness—"Jojo Rabbit".

Jojo runs away to the woods is consoled by his pal, Adolph. So much so, that, his brio renewed, he charges back to the camp in the middle of a grenade training class...

...and manages to blow himself up.

Needless to say, grenade training is suspended for the day and Klenzendorf is reprimanded and given a dressing-down by Jojo's mother, who puts Jojo's further training in Klenzendorf's hands, but, this time, but now restricted to the Hitler Youth headquarters.

Jojo spends some time in hospital and is distressed that his face is scarred up, making him look less Aryan and therefore "monstrous," making him feel further ostracized from his Nazi countrymen.

Jojo learns, though, to be independent because his mother is spending less time at home (she is secretly working for the resistance). But, he's also home alone more than usual. He begins to hear odd noises in the house, coming from within the house. A furtive investigation finds that, hidden in a storage section of his late sister's room, is a teen-aged girl named Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie). Jojo takes an immediate dislike to her because 1) he's scared of her, 2) she's a girl, and 3) she's in his house and 4) she's Jewish.

Elsa takes advantage of his confused terror, keeping him quiet about her presence—he and his Mom will be arrested, too, of course, for hiding her. So, an uneasy pact must be made between Jojo, Nazi-in-training, and "a Jew"—who has a name, a personality, and a vague resemblance to his sister. In the waning days of the war, with everything "going fine," Jojo must deal with his own "otherness" and be in close proximity to the most wanted "other" in his blighted country.

Heavy stuff. And the monstrousness and tragedy that is the yin and yang of the Nazi machinery and those who are caught up in it is not given short shrift in Jojo Rabbit. Terrible things happen and the pain and ache and villainy of it is made apparent and communicated appropriately.

But, despite this, the movie, generally, is funny as Hell.

Partially, it's because Jojo is a kid and a mass of misinformation, schadenfreude, and the inability to live up to the rhetoric. Combine that with the lampooning of Nazi doctrine where there is no room for doubt despite ample evidence to the contrary surrounding you and you have, not so much a comedy of errors as a comedy of dogma.

And therein the front of satire lies. Everything you know is wrong, yet you march on in the same goose-step anyway even if it's through a mine-field of your own making. Fortunately, the movie spends a great deal of time mocking the tenets of Nazism leading to such observations as Jojo's friend telling him: "It's not a good time to be a Nazi. Our only friends are the Japanese—and just between you and me, they don't look very Aryan." It may be a little UN-PC, but it's to the point. If it had been merely this, it would not be very successful. But, as it involves a change of heart and a valuable learning experience on the part of the protagonist, it's actually valuable and sweet.

And Hitler has never been funnier.