Musings After Seeing the Movie “Bridesmaids”

Last updated on: January 24, 2017 at 6:26 pm by Allison Salerno

Musings After Seeing the Movie “Bridesmaids” 2017-01-24T18:26:45-05:00 Allison Salerno

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My husband invited me on a date tonight – dinner at our favorite diner, followed by a movie. The movie he had in mind was Bridesmaids, a comedy Universal Pictures released on Friday. My husband warned me it’s rated R, because he knew I likely would become uncomfortable with at least some aspect of the movie. And I was.

I also laughed so hard at some of the over-the-top gross-out humor in the movie that I was crying. And some of the events in the movie tugged at my heart. The movie also provoked me to question how best to live in a world that doesn’t always reflect my beliefs.

Bridesmaids is full of profanity as well as sex between unmarried couples. It also offers slapstick humor and a sweet, budding romance between the maid of honor (played by Saturday Night Live’s Kristen Wiig) and a state trooper. I was touched by the appearance of Jill Clayburgh in this movie. She plays the lead’s lonely divorced mother. (Clayburgh died before the film was released.) In short, I’d recommend this movie to my middle-aged friends.

But what troubles me is that this movie is being marketed as appropriate for older teens. The producer is the same guy who produced “Knocked Up,” and “The 40-year-old Virgin,” movies I have assiduously avoided. One review says: “Older teens, especially girls, may be drawn to the film’s R-rated antics and female-heavy cast.”

What is the world of relationships like in this movie? In Bridesmaids, every male-female relationship we see forming begins with sex, and then ends with the possibility of love or romance. Sex is in no way sacred here. The married women are miserable. Except for the bride-to-be, played by Maya Rudolph, the single ladies are unhappy, too.

Ultimately, the movie tells us a hook-up culture and crass materialism won’t make us happy. The good guy in the movie turns out to be a Wisconsin state trooper with a radar gun. But in order to send this message, we see plenty of gratuitous scenes of icky relationships. If you plan to see this movie, don’t bring the kids along.

Watching Bridesmaids provoked my thinking. It served as a reminder to me. It made me wonder: how do we live in this broken world? How do we seek the face of Christ in those we encounter?

Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman answers this question much better than I can:

Stay with me, and then I shall begin to shine as you shine; so to shine as to be a light to others. The light, O Jesus, will be all from you. None of it will be mine. No merit to me. It will be you who shines through me upon others…. Make me preach you without preaching – not by words, but by my example and by the catching force, the sympathetic influence, of what I do – by my visible resemblance to your saints, and the evident fullness of the love which my heart bears to you.

Update: How come my comment wasn’t published?

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