Great Character: Annie Walker (“Bridesmaids”)
The Great Character theme for the month: Women Written by Women. Today: Annie Walker from the 2011 movie Bridesmaids, written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo.
From around my own region of the map in Rochester New York, to downstate in the bright New York City lights of Saturday Night Live, and onward to her big blockbusting lead acting role as Annie Walker in Bridesmaids, Kristen Wiig has firmly framed her portrait in the halls of humor. The Groundlings comedy troupe in Los Angeles that also trained Will Ferrell, Paul Reubens, and her Bridesmaids co-stars Maya Rudolph and Melissa McCarthy helped carve Kristen’s comedic credibility.
Independent film favorites like Adventureland and The Skeleton Twins meshed chuckles with her emotional charm. Animated voice work in humongous family film franchises like Despicable Me and How to Train Your Dragon kept Kristen’s name navigating the mainstream. But in 2011, Wiig co-wrote with Annie Mumolo, co-produced and starred in Bridesmaids, taking a first class ride on the Judd Apatow Comedy Cruiser, and raising her riotous profile in the process.
Bridesmaids from IMDB:
Competition between the maid of honor and a bridesmaid, over who is the bride’s best friend, threatens to upend the life of an out-of-work pastry chef.
Annie Walker is feeling much like Little Orphan Annie, getting walked on. Her late 30’s are not just sucking, but sucking the life out of her life. The bakery she created went bust, and the boyfriend she ran it with ran as well. Her jewelry store job is proving to not provide much treasure to pay her bills with. She has a car that is struggling to stay mobile. And to make matters worse, her love life revolves around a guy she would love to date, but who prefers to only deal with her from the neck down.
ANNIE: We had an adult sleepover.
But if the nasty toilet flood that her life has become could have any jealousy-inducing mirror to mock it with, it appears in the form of Annie envious reaction to her best friend Lillian’s (Maya Rudolph) boyfriend upgrading to husband-to-be with a new rich friend Helen (Rose Byrne) aggressively clamoring to take Annie’s spot and become Lillian’s new bestie.
Annie’s character is written with a hefty amount of sympathetic emotional baggage that she struggles to lift, while have to wear the fake smile in the presence of the more financially stable bridesmaids. It is this heap of heartfelt strife and separation anxiety from Lillian’s new life that raises her visibility within a colorful circle of other scene-stealers like Megan Price (Melissa McCarthy) and Brynn (Rebel Wilson). We clearly see the vertically intense depths from which Annie’s pride has been dropped from when she gets into an inappropriate feud with a teenaged customer at her job, that becomes her ex-job.
The Annie vs. Helen wedding planning faceoff puts these two ego-fighters in various hilarious arenas, one classic set piece involves food poisoning and a high price tag bridal boutique.
ANNIE: You’re really doing it, aren’t ya? You’re shitting in the street!
Watching Annie’s desperation to impress Lillian continually lead to her diving recklessly into the deep end with no life preserver, or water for that matter, peels back her internal scabs baring blunt vulnerability in between her smart aleck remarks.
ANNIE: No, Lillian! What are you gonna go, you’re gonna go to Paris with Helen now? What are you gonna, you guys gonna ride around on bikes with berets and fucking baguettes in the basket on the front of your bikes?
Ultimately, Annie Walker’s character in Bridesmaids succeeds to entertain and enthrall thanks to her clear motivations, her messy responses that complicate her dilemmas further and Annie being a romantic comedy character in a unique situation: a nonromantic girlfriend triangle instead of the typical lover’s quarrel.
ANNIE: (to Helen who is crying) It’s just… it’s the first time I’ve ever seen you look ugly… and that makes me kind of happy.
For her pre-midlife crisis confrontation, for her humorous prolonged maturity battling it out with her serious adult responsibilities and for her transformation of pain into strength — Annie Walker is a truly GREAT CHARACTER from the realm of women written by written.
Annie is an important character in an important movie as this lighthearted comedic romp helped smash conventional wisdom in Hollywood, specifically female audiences would not support an R-rated comedy with female leads. Wrong!
A special end note to this week’s Great Character post:
My name is Jason Cuthbert, a GoIntoTheStory.com contributor to GREAT CHARACTERS since June 8th 2012. I’m directing my very first feature length documentary entitled: “COLOURING BOOK: The Mixed Race Documentary” that compares diversity in the United States to Canada, through three generations of my own multicultural family. Academic experts and animated segments will be blended in to enhance the educational value of the core storyline. My team and I are currently raising funds at SeedandSpark.com to finance equipment for “COLOURING BOOK,” as well as future documentaries and scripted narratives. Any support would be incredibly appreciated.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Website Link: http://www.colouringbook.info
Campaign Link: http://www.seedandspark.com/studio/colouring-book-productions
Jason’s Twitter Handle: @A2Jason
Colouring Book Twitter Handle: @ColouringBk
There are at two damn good reasons to throw some support Jason’s way. First, this looks like a fascinating and worthy documentary. Second, a show of gratitude to Jason for his steadfast contributions to this blog and to the life of the online screenwriting community with his insightful weekly Great Character posts.
To contribute to Colouring Book, go here.