Kurt Loder Reviews Bachelorette and The Words

Although the play on which Bachelorette is based was running off-Broadway before Bridesmaids even started shooting, the new film inevitably recalls last year's smash hit. Once again we have a group of thirtyish female friends coming together for the wedding of one of their number, and having all manner of zany and bracingly scabrous adventures. Here, stepping in for Kristen Wiig, is Kirsten Dunst, playing the level-headed maid-of-honor, Regan. Frustrating her earnest efforts to organize the big event are adorable ditz Katie (Isla Fisher) and sleep-around sourball Gena (Lizzy Caplan). As Katie pulls out a stash of cocaine she's brought along and Gena casts a hostile/horny eye on her old high-school boyfriend Clyde (Adam Scott), who's also on hand for the nuptials, the bride-to-be, jovial, heavy-set Becky (Rebel Wilson), grows increasingly uneasy. A lot of this, writes Kurt Loder, is very funny.

The Words, on the other hand, attempts to depict the interior struggles of a writer at work—the frustrations, the inspirations, the search for the perfect word. Unable to show us such mental exertions, the filmmakers are compelled to fall back on externalities—the writer biting his lip over a keyboard, feverishly shuffling through his notes, and so forth. Like any number of previous films in this genre (the dodgy old Lillian Hellman biopic Julia comes quickly to mind), The Words once again fails to adequately visualize creative labor. In a new wrinkle, though, Loder writes, this movie fails to do so in several different ways.