Bachelorette

Becky (Rebel Wilson) is about to get married, so she reunites with her high school gal-pals Regan (Kirsten Dunst), Gena (Lizzy Kaplan) and Katie (Isla Fisher) for a low-key bachelorette party. But when she wanders off to bed, the remaining trio decide to keep the party going, and in the middle of their OTT antics, they accidentally rip Becky's wedding dress. So they set off around New York in a desperate attempt to find a midnight clothing repair store, while also still wanting to keep their buzz going.

Throughout the night we get to know these women a little better; Regan is doing a very bad job of hiding the disappointment that she wasn't the first to get married, Gena is doing a very bad job of cloaking her deep-rooted romanticism with cynicism, and Katie is doing a very bad job of keeping her rampant drug problem under control. There are some sub-plots involving the past, present and future men of their lives, one of which is played by a once-again underused James Marsden, but mostly this is a movie about women taking stock of their lives.

Initially this may seem like a rip-off of Bridesmaids (in actuality, it's based on a play that came out way before that Kirsten Wiig movie), but aside from the vague set-up there are actually very few similarities. The key word in Bachelorette is dark: the women are dark, the stuff they do is dark, the conversations they have are dark, all of which combined creates an odd atmosphere which snuffs out most of the potential laughs and leaves us with nothing but unlikeable characters.

The actresses go all in with their roles, not afraid to play some truly nasty pieces of work, especially Dunst and Fisher, who we're so used to seeing play lighter and warmer people than what they're bringing to the table here. There are some laughs, though more of the humour is laced in cringing uncomfortableness and bracing honesty than, say, women falling over in high-heels. Then it all kind of falls apart towards the end, as the girls realise the error of their ways and learn their lessons and yada yada yada.

Do not go into this movie expecting Bridesmaids 2, and you might be pleasantly surprised. But anyone wanting a laugh-along rom-com, this is absolutely not for you.