Friday, 16 August 2013

"Bachelorette" (The Guardian 16/08/13)


Bachelorette (15) 87 mins ***

A flop Stateside, Leslye Headland’s abrasive adaptation of her own stageplay splits the difference between Bridesmaids and TV’s Girls: the attempts of uptight Kirsten Dunst, coke-snorting Isla Fisher and walking bruise Lizzy Caplan to keep a pal’s gown intact through a long night’s bachelorette celebrations build toward a tipping point of sourness, before a Proclaimers song unexpectedly cues the movie equivalent of make-up sex. Headland has comic smarts enough to venture both filthily revisionist readings of My So-Called Life and riffs on the Potsdam conference, while refusing her audience any comforting safety nets: loathe the central screw-ups, loathe the film. Still, the approach retains that edge regularly removed from more commercially amenable comedies, and the cast make merry-ish: in a less imperfect world, it would have made a star out of Caplan, busy painting over all her lookalike Zooey Deschanel’s rainbows with heartbreak and kohl. 

Bachelorette opens in selected cinemas from today.

No comments:

Post a Comment