Kristen Wiig may not immediately bring to mind Lucille Ball but by the end of the spunky, insightful Bridesmaids, there’s the realization she’s a major comedic film talent who has hit her stride. The Saturday Night Live vet plays an engaging down-on-her-luck but indomitable failed bakery retailer, Annie, who learns her best friend Lillian (SNL co-star Maya Rudolph) is getting married.

Now Annie isn’t just broke, she’s low on self-esteem, a state compounded by the way a funny-in-his-haughtiness John Hamm treats her in their no-strings-attached physical hookups. Her sensitive yet hilarious reactions lead her to pow wows with Lillian. It’s all about to change though. Not so much from the entrance into the picture of the groom, but the ramming into the scene of the groom’s boss’s wife Helen (Rose Byrne), an instant nemesis to Annie on the maid-of-honor front. Helen is perfectly dressed and silly wealthy, and you get the idea she always has her way pretty effortlessly. Her undermining seems almost subconscious.

And since we’re talking Judd Apatow here (he produced) there are enough coarse and callous jokes and send-ups to keep things moving briskly, or occasionally holding them back. That one involves a scatalogical food poisoning episode ending with Lillian in a borrowed wedding dress squatted in the middle of the street while its shopkeeper owner looks on in horror is de regueur Apatow.

More colorful characters ensue. Melissa McCarthy as a junk-yard-dog, take- no-prisoners sergeant of arms among the bridesmaids. Chris Dowd as a nice-guy, witty Irish cop whose affection for her Annie barely seems to notice. An odd-as-hell brother and sister landlord/roomates to alienate Annie further.

What sets apart Wiig’s (who also co-wrote) and director Paul Feig’s film is the way it cleverly demonstrates both the necessity and the durability of female friendship while showcasing Wiig’s tour de force talent right down to her low-key, subtle facial movements.

So Bridesmaids is truly funny, yet what’s trailblazing here isn’t so much the chick-flick-goes-gross-out as the reinvented feminist comedy arrives wearing a brutish mask of street cred.

7.5 tiaras out of 10

Kristen Wiig may not immediately bring to mind Lucille Ball but by the end of the spunky, insightful Bridesmaids, there’s the realization she’s a major comedic film talent who has hit her stride. The Saturday Night Live vet plays an engaging down-on-her-luck but indomitable failed bakery retailer, Annie, who learns her best friend Lillian (SNL co-star Maya Rudolph) is getting married.

Now Annie isn’t just broke, she’s low on self-esteem, a state compounded by the way a funny-in-his-haughtiness John Hamm treats her in their no-strings-attached physical hookups. Her sensitive yet hilarious reactions lead her to pow wows with Lillian. It’s all about to change though. Not so much from the entrance into the picture of the groom, but the ramming into the scene of the groom’s boss’s wife Helen (Rose Byrne), an instant nemesis to Annie on the maid-of-honor front. Helen is perfectly dressed and silly wealthy, and you get the idea she always has her way pretty effortlessly. Her undermining seems almost subconscious.

And since we’re talking Judd Apatow here (he produced) there are enough coarse and callous jokes and send-ups to keep things moving briskly, or occasionally holding them back. That one involves a scatalogical food poisoning episode ending with Lillian in a borrowed wedding dress squatted in the middle of the street while its shopkeeper owner looks on in horror is de regueur Apatow.

More colorful characters ensue. Melissa McCarthy as a junk-yard-dog, take- no-prisoners sergeant of arms among the bridesmaids. Chris Dowd as a nice-guy, witty Irish cop whose affection for her Annie barely seems to notice. An odd-as-hell brother and sister landlord/roomates to alienate Annie further.

What sets apart Wiig’s (who also co-wrote) and director Paul Feig’s film is the way it cleverly demonstrates both the necessity and the durability of female friendship while showcasing Wiig’s tour de force talent right down to her low-key, subtle facial movements.

So Bridesmaids is truly funny, yet what’s trailblazing here isn’t so much the chick-flick-goes-gross-out as the reinvented feminist comedy arrives wearing a brutish mask of street cred.

7.5 tiaras out of 10