Daily Dialogue — September 23, 2015

Megan puts the dogs on the porch then closes the door. Then she sits on the couch with Annie.

MEGAN: Heel. Heel.
ANNIE: How many did you take?
MEGAN: Oh. Uh, I took nine. I overcommitted with this whole dog thing. I’d probably be more comfortable with six. It’s a lot of energy to deal with. But you wouldn’t know that because you haven’t been returning my calls.
ANNIE: And say what? Hi, I can’t get off the couch. I got fired from my job, I got kicked out of my apartment, I can’t pay any of my bills, my car is a piece of shit, I don’t have any friends —

Megan stands up and starts pacing then gets in Annie’s face.

MEGAN: You know what I find interesting about that Annie? It’s interesting to me that you have absolutely no friends. Do you know why that’s interesting? Here’s a friend standing directly in front of you trying to talk to you and you choose to talk about having no friends.
ANNIE: You know what I mean.
MEGAN: You know what I think?

She pokes Annie. Then continues to prod and push her as she talks.

MEGAN: You don’t want help. You want a pity party.
ANNIE: No, I don’t. Stop it.
MEGAN: You’re an asshole, Annie.

Megan shoves Annie.

ANNIE: Ow. What are you doing?
MEGAN: What? Am I bothering you? I’m life. Life bothering you? Life’s hard, huh? Life can push you around. I’m your life. You’re gonna let life bite you on the ass?

Then Megan sits on top of Annie and holds her arms.

MEGAN: I’m trying to get you to your shitty life and you it. I’m your shitty life fight for won’t do, Annie.

Annie SMACKS Megan hard in the face.

ANNIE: Oh my god, I’m sorry.

Megan looks like she might get mad, but then she smiles.

MEGAN: I’m not. Nice hit. I’m glad to see you’ve got a little bit of spark in you. I knew that Annie was in there somewhere.

— Bridesmaids (2011), written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Depression.

Trivia: Judd Apatow pushed hard for wild, physical comedy while Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig preferred to go for subtler comedy. The film’s most notorious sequence — the diarrhea scene — was largely at the insistence of Apatow and director Paul Feig.

Dialogue On Dialogue: One character’s depression is another character’s “pity party”. And Megan does a great job breaking through Annie’s defensive state of sadness to reveal some fight for her “shitty life”.

Comment Archive