When Bridesmaids came out, I hoped that people would finally stop asking the question that no one really needed to be asked: can women be funny? Obviously. Duh. Whether or not this movie, co-written by Kristen Wiig, finally answers that questions, I wanted to take a look at this film as a romcom, not just a female-led comedy. I definitely understand the pushback that just because a film is centered on a woman, doesn’t mean it is romcom outright, which is totally fair. Yet, there is an element of romance for Annie, played by Kristen Wiig, that we shouldn’t be ignore in favor of focusing on this is a comedy film alone. Plus, there are still a lot of ways Bridesmaids falls back on gendered tropes that puts it firmly in romcom land. After all, the romance is one of the only strands of Annie’s tattered life that the film bothers to repair. Whether it means to or not, the movie makes the argument that as long as a woman’s love life is set, the rest of her life being in literal shambles doesn’t really matter. For my purposes, I’m going to treat this movie like a romcom. Plus, she’s a freakin’ pastry chef, people. Complete sidenote: I watched this movie on E!, so all of the cursing was bleeped out, and in that spirit, I’m censoring myself too.

 

When the film opens, we immediately see that Annie’s life is in a complete downward spiral in direct contrast to her friend Lillian’s personal success. We find out that her bakery (kind of uncomfortably named Cake Baby) closed recently in maybe the most casual way any character has let the audience know “whoops I lost my small business and therefore my life’s direction.” Annie and Lillian just happen on the closed storefront after their brunch together, and the film doesn’t really dwell on it in this moment, as it’s just one more reason that Annie doesn’t have it together, especially as Lillian is about to get engaged. Already, this job is remarkably gendered: it feels like woman in romcoms that work in the culinary business are more often pastry chefs than they are chefs, as there is something coded as feminine and dainty about cupcakes. Maybe because they’re smaller than actual cakes?

 

Whatever the reason, the film decides to use Annie’s job as a rigid assertion of her femininity in a film that otherwise doesn’t feel the need to box women in with their careers. The job she gets in the wake of her business closing isn’t much better — she’s a jewelry salesperson, which she hates. I think the movie wants us to pick up on the irony that she’s selling this symbol of commitment to people in love who are making peak “I’ve got my life together” decisions, when she the film wants us to know she clearly does not. The film uses her job to expose her personal heartbreaks, not to actually give her any sense of career fulfillment. Yes, people can have sucky jobs that they hate in order to pay rent, but I found myself wanting more from Bridesmaids, as Annie does seem to have a career path that would be more than just a job.

 

Yet, the film seems to be trying too hard to convince us that Annie cares about baking as a passion that drives her, and I’m not sure I believe it. Toward the beginning of the movie, when things are just starting to unravel for Annie in regards to Lillian’s wedding, there’s a scene of her baking one singular cupcake. Yes, you heard me correctly. Annie makes from scratch INCLUDING FONDANT just one singular cupcake. This is played for the audience as some sort of insight into her emotions, how she feels isolated, but I just honestly cannot get on board with this woman putting that much effort into one cupcake.

 

The film is leading us down the path to believe that baking is Annie’s sole passion and comfort in life, but this is only one of two scenes in which she bakes anything. At one point, she even glances wistfully at articles praising Cake Baby, longing for a time before her life seemed to be falling apart. I just can’t buy that Annie loves baking as much the movie wants us to think she does. Yes, her bakery closed and I feel vaguely sad for her, but why is this the end of the line for her? Why would she not try to set up a new business? Maybe she’s afraid of failure, but if this is her passion, I might expect her to try harder? At least try for employment in her industry, not in jewelry sales? I’m willing to bet that Milwaukee has another bakery in town. For a film that is subversive and weird in so many other ways, this meh handling of Annie’s career, trying to convince us that it’s her passion yet not really doing anything to let her pursue it, is kind of disappointing.

 

Although this movie is primarily about the relationship between Annie and Lillian, who have been best friends since childhood, and how Lillian’s new friend Helen undermines Annie’s role as maid of honor, the film can’t resist a romantic relationship for Annie. To be honest, I’m not sure this movie even needs the tension that Annie and her love interest provide, as the scenes of the women with their dynamics are far more interesting. I mean, the scene where all the bridesmaids have food poisoning and sh*t themselves is iconic, y’all. Yet, the romance exists, and not only does it it exist, it’s very gendered. Although Annie literally opens the film hooking with Jon Hamm, he’s very much disposable and only exists to show the audience that Annie’s self worth is at an all time low. The main love interest for her character is a very cute Irish cop, whose name I’m really not sure of. Rhodes? It’s Rhodes. Apparently his first name matters as much to me as it matters to the movie, as I think we really only hear it once.

 

Here’s the situation: Rhodes is a cop of the traffic variety who meets Annie because of her busted tail lights. Their jobs are remarkably gendered. A pastry chef and a cop? Really? I expect more from a film that is seeks to break tropes in other ways. To make matters worse, Rhodes is apparently a big fan of Annie’s work. He liked her cupcakes! He was sad when Cake Baby closed! This is also the moment in which we learn that Annie was in business with her ex-boyfriend, which adds a whole nother layer to the mess that is her work life. Although Rhodes, played by Chris O’Dowd is wonderfully sweet and supportive of Annie’s career (more on that later), I can’t shake the fact that they’re conforming to stereotypes of work for men and women. Women work in the home and with food (baking) and men are strong and protect outside of the home (cop). While I love Bridesmaids, this is a little unnecessary.

 

Continuing the theme of Annie not really committing to her career, she won’t even bake with the nice cop after they spend the night together, which is a shame, because he’s so encouraging. I’m a little ticked that it takes a male love interest to push her professionally and not her mother or maybe even Lillian, but whatever. Annie is presented with the tools to bake breakfast — super low stakes — and she has to confront her lack of career motivation head on. She refuses, telling him that baking doesn’t make her happy anymore, but I call bs. Remember the aforementioned cupcake with fondant earlier? Maybe baking doesn’t bring her happiness, but it’s some sort of comfort. Their argument here is one of my main problems with Annie as a character: Rhodes is confused as to why she won’t bake, and Annie gets defensive real quick.

 

He’s treating her career like a passion, something you should pursue until the end. He makes an important point — even if she lost money, she’s not a failure. Even though the film kind of makes her look like a failure, not just in this career aspect. It just bubbles up in this scene, so it’s significant that baking is what does it. Is Rhodes asking her to bake with him kind of asking her to work for free? Sure. But, he’s also trying to help her get her life on track and do something for the love of it, which is a nice gesture.

 

Unsurprisingly, Annie gets fired from her jewelry job for calling a teenage girl a c*nt, so she probably deserves it. This undoubtedly creates a huge money issue for Annie, allowing us to see her rock bottom. She’s ruined things with Lillian, in her love life, and now with her job. As this romcom is definitely heavy on the com, her personal tragedy is supposed to have a kind of humor about it, but I do wish that she didn’t have to become unemployed for the film to hammer home that things are not going so well for her. To make matters worse, Annie has to face cute cop again after she gets in an accident because of the brake lights he told her to get fixed the first time they met. He lays it on her: she did flirt with him and make him feel like she liked him and then she got really weird about it post baking incident. Yes, I support women being complicated, difficult people, but she needs to be able to face the consequences of that.

 

The film again tries to make a case for baking as Annie’s way of solving problems, showing that her career is actually important to her, but it feels a little hollow given how melancholy she’s been about it this entire time. She bakes Rhodes an “I’m sorry” cake in the shape of a carrot, which is a nice callback to the time the two of them bonded over convenience-store carrots. But, he ignores it and raccoons eat it. If that ain’t a metaphor. I think it’s significant that the film is trying to get us to see that baking for him (for another person) again is a huge step, but I again wish they had done more to establish the stakes for her in her career. When it comes down to it, one scene of her making a cupcake does not a passion make.

 

Lots of shenanigans go down with Annie, Lillian, and Helen and the wedding, and while it would be fun to talk about the female relationships in this film, the more interesting thing to me is the film’s firm resolution of only one of the two sources of stress in Annie’s life: her love life and her career. In the final scene, Rhodes shows up to drive her away from the wedding in his cop car. How did he know to be here? Did Helen call him? Did Annie? Unclear, but he tells Annie he ate her cake, which is sweet but also gross because of the aforementioned raccoons. They reconcile, and literally drive off into the night together. This is the only plotline of Annie’s life in Milwaukee Bridesmaids decides to solve. She’s very much still jobless. So is her career important to this movie at all? Well, not really. Although the focus of Bridesmaids isn’t entirely on the romantic relationship or on Annie’s career, both exist strongly in the periphery. With how fun and unexpected and genuinely funny the rest of this movie is, I have to say I’m disappointed that only her romance is resolved. It’s a nitpick, maybe, but I wish they had done more.