Bridesmaids: Another Movie Ruined by Expectations

So by now you've probably heard of a little movie called Bridesmaids.  Possibly you've even seen it, and raved about it to others, in the hopes that they would see it.  In fact, maybe you were so excited about the movie, about the portrayal of women-as-people-rather-than-tropes that you went a little bit overboard with your praise.  And so did thousands and thousands of other people, building this movie- which really could be most accurately called, "an Apatow movie in which the main cast has vaginae instead of penises"- up into "The Most Incredible Film in Which Women Finally Are Real, Funny People".

Gentle Readers, this is not that movie.  This movie, is, as I stated above, an Apatow movie with women instead of men.  Which means that by all rights I should have gone in expecting exactly that- and had I done so I'm sure I'd have enjoyed it as much as I did, say, I Love You Man (okay, not an Apatow movie, but you get the point).  But the accolades heaped upon this movie led me to believe that it was going to be a Great Movie.  And when it wasn't I was left... well, really disappointed.

And baffled.

Where did all this praise come from?  These cries of, "Finally women have a comedic vehicle worthy of their gender!"?  Because somehow I missed that part of the movie.  What I saw was a movie about a not-particularly likeable character (not in itself a dealbreaker) who was supposedly best friends with a woman with whom she apparently had nothing in common with beyond their shared childhood, and whose other "best friend" is another not-particularly likeable character (although there are hints that she might at least be sympathetic- hints that are never actually expanded upon, unfortunately).  What I saw was a string of stereotypes (the "bored housewife", the "naive young newlywed", the "masculine/fat-and-therefore-kind-of-gross girl") who might have stood a chance of being interesting had any of them actually done anything beyond their initial, "Here, meet the Stereotypes!" introductions.  For a movie that was being heralded for its portrayal of realistic female relationships, I sure didn't see much in the way of actual friendship.  Or bonds of any sort.  Or really, women interacting in any way other than the completely freaking insane.

Which, again, I might have been okay with, had I not been listening to so many people use the word "real" and "realistic" in their descriptions of the movie.  If I'd gone in expecting a farce,  I'd not have been disappointed to get one.