Dump ‘Bachelorette,’ a crass girlie rom-com
FRENEMIES: A LOVE STORY | The bridesmaids (Isla Fisher, Kirstin Dunst, Lizzy Caplan) to this ‘Bachelorette’ would be better named ‘Mean Girls.’
2012 is shaping up to be the summer when the movies embraced male strippers, first with Magic Mike and now, Bachelorette. We’re not complaining. Though, come to think about it, we kinda are.
Sure, we liked seeing Andrew Rannells (just days before his debut in The New Normal) shake his moneymaker for a few titillating moments in this wedding eve comedy, but that’s poor reason to endure this humorless stab at capitalizing on the girls-can-be-just-as-gross-as-boys Bridesmaids. That had Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy; this one has Kirstin Dunst and the comedic hand of Sen. Joe McCarthy. ‘Nuff said.
Aside from its misguided title (it’s not the sappy reality TV show — not by a long shot), the major problem with Bachelorette is that it never affects a truly light-hearted and silly tone. The things that go wrong — like the stripper accidentally calling the zaftig bride “Pig Face,” the sobriquet her frenemies stuck her with in high school, or the girls drunkenly ripping her wedding dress to shreds — come off less as humiliating missteps and more like genuine meanness. This is a comedy without a sense of comic timing. If ever someone deserved to get jilted at the chapel, it’s this Bachelorette.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition September 7, 2012.