Typecast much?

 
I watched Girl Most Likely over the weekend and even though I'd give it a solid B-, it wasn't as good as I expected. At first, I thought that I didn't love it because of the farcical ending.  But then I realized that I had a very similar reaction to the movie, Bridesmaids, which was a film that didn't thrill me even though it got rave reviews.  Kristen Wiig plays basically the same character is both of these movies: mid-thirties, failed career, failed love life, eventually winds up living in her mother's home with no end in sight.

Okay, so generally no real issue with that (how many times has Katherine Heigl or James Marsden played similar characters in subsequent movies?). My problem is that these films are toted as comedies when they clearly are not pure comedy. I think they toe the line of dramedy at best. Sure, all the ladies in Bridesmaids wind up pooping while in expensive bridal wear but there's never any mention of the mental breakdown of Kristen Wiig's character.  In Girl Most Likely, the main character fakes her own suicide to get her uninterested boyfriend back.  Just because Wiig is quirky and these movies are ironic doesn't mean that they should automatically be classified as comedies.  Perhaps people won't go to a movie starring Kristen Wiig unless it's a comedy.

That being said, there are some memorable moments in Girl Most Likely: Darren Criss as a Backstreet Boy impersonator is great as is Annette Bening in the typical 'mom' role, although I think she is great in pretty much anything.  Also, the scene where Kristen Wiig's character, Imogene, wakes up in a casino parking lot in Atlantic City, still dressed in her johnnycoat from the psych ward, and walks into said casino searching for her gambling mother was pretty entertaining.  As someone who grew up in a family of gamblers, this rang true to me.

I'm excited to see The Skeleton Twins with Wiig and Bill Hader coming out in September, although this serious movie has a semi-uplifting trailer. I think it's time to embrace Kristen Wiig's ability for dramatic roles--who's with me?