“Stop slapping yourself, stop slapping yourself.
I’m your life, Annie.
I’m your shitty life.”
[Slap] “Nice hit.”
At first, Melissa McCarthy’s Megan comes across as too much
for Bridesmaids protagonist Annie.
“I’m glad he’s single, because I’m going to climb that like a tree.”
But as Annie watches her lifelong pal Lillian grow more distant,
[Screams] “What are you doing?”
“What am I doing?
You wouldn’t know, would you?
Where have you been?
You would have no idea.”
the person who really shows up for her isn’t the one she expected.
“I’m life, and I’m going to bite you in the ass!”
“OW!”
Megan is that unassuming gem who’s not the friend you thought you wanted,
but is the friend you need.
“All right.
Man, you have got to wash your hair.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’ve gotta wash that hair.”
Her bond with Annie embodies
the specific phenomenon of making friends as an adult.
Through Megan, Bridesmaids captures why it’s so hard to make friends later in life,
and why it’s absolutely essential.
“You lost Lillian.
You got another best friend sitting right in front of you, if you’d notice.”
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According to clinical psychologist Linda Blair,
“the basis of making a friend is a shared experience.”
Lillian and Annie are so close because of the sheer number of experiences
they’ve been through together.
“We listened to Hold On probably 10,000 times when I got my driver’s license.”
But the opportunity for sharing crucial life events diminishes the older we get.
This is why Lillian’s new friend Helen envies Annie:
she was there for Lillian’s formative moments.
“Lake house?”
“Yeah.
Well, it’s, you know, Lillian’s parents’ house.
We used to go there all the time in the summers and everything.”
whereas Helen can only wax nostalgic about a tipsy business trip.
“Remember that trip we took to Miami with the boys?”
[Laughs]
“And they were working the entire weekend, and we just sat
and drank wine and ate peanut brittle.”
Plus, in school or college, there’s a large pool of potential pals,
so it feels like you really have your choice.
But as life goes on, you’re presented with slimmer pickings.
You make friends because your husbands work together
or because you both happen to be in the same bridal party.
“I’m so happy to get to know you guys,
and happy to say that I have four new friends.”
Basically, as an adult, it’s much harder to meet people.
“It’s rare to meet someone as an adult who you really connect with.”
If you don’t hit it off with the limited number of people
you meet through work, family, or friends of existing friends, you’re out of luck.
“I’m telling you.
Hooking up is easy.
Meeting platonic male friends?
Not so much.”
“So what do I do?
I mean, how do I meet friends?“
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Recent research suggests that
a total stranger can become your friend in just 90 hours.
But when you’re juggling a full-time job or a family,
how do you find the time to spend 90 hours with anyone?
And how do you know that a certain person you meet
is worth investing those 90 hours into?
Annie and Lillian’s relationship goes back decades,
but part of the reason their friendship hits the rocks
is that it’s predicated on nostalgia.
“I don’t know, I just wish things were the way that they used to be, you know.”
Their youthful-feeling connection doesn’t fit well into responsible adult life --
it’s more of an escape from their everyday.
“I’m coming after you!”
“Sorry, Rodney, we’re on a budget!”
This is why they increasingly find it hard to make time for each other.
“I’m so glad that we got to do this.
I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”
When they’re having fun at the beginning of the movie,
it sounds like Lillian only has time for this meet-up
because her boyfriend Dougie has been distracted.
“But I just feel like he’s kinda been distant lately.”
And after it’s revealed this distance was because
he didn’t want to blow the surprise of a proposal,
Annie realizes Lillian is going to be more unavailable to her than ever.
“Oh my God, I just got hot.”
“You did?
Are you okay?”
“Yes.
My pits are sweating.
My stomach hurts.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, I’m hot.”
As we talked about in our Annie video,
Bridesmaids is the story of Annie hitting rock bottom.
And when she’s in this darkest period of her life,
it isn’t old friend Lillian who comes to her rescue;
it’s Megan who notices that Annie is sinking.
“No, I don’t think you want any help.
I think you want to have a little pity party.
Yeah, I think Annie wants a little pity party.”
She displays a commitment to Annie that we never see from Lillian --
going around to her house when her life is falling apart,
being there even when Annie rejects her help,
insisting on friendship.
“Now, you got to stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Okay, ’cause
I do not associate with people that blame the world for their problems.”
The flipside of how hard it is to meet people as grown-ups is that,
for later-life friendships to work, there has to be a genuine, deeper connection.
Annie and Lillian became besties at an age
when bonds could be based on liking the same bands and living close by.
By the time Annie and Megan meet,
their intimacy has to be established through choice.
“You wouldn’t know anything about that
because you haven’t been returning my calls.”
Megan’s agency exemplifies that adult friendships only really come to fruition
if at least one party makes a commitment and decides to push for the relationship.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re an asshole.
I’m life.
Huh, is life bothering you?”
And she illustrates that two of the best reasons
to become friends with someone as an adult
are because you need them, or they need you.
“All right.
I’m glad to see you’ve got a little bit of spark in you.
I knew that Annie was in there somewhere.”
There’s no better basis for a deep friendship
than helping each other through life’s great trials.
“’Cause you’re your problem, Annie.
And you’re also your solution.”
One of the biggest barriers to making adult friends is that so often
they’re not the type of people you imagined you’d be friends with.
“Here’s a friend standing directly in front of you, trying to talk to you.
And you choose to talk about the fact that you don’t have any friends.”
So you have to battle your own preconceptions
about the kinds of people you should associate with.
“No!
No!”
“Look away!”
“Megan, no!”
“Look away!”
(which in turn come from your preconceptions about yourself.)
At first, Annie doesn’t see Megan as friendship material.
We also see Megan through Annie’s eyes, as a total oddball.
“Annie, have you ever been buttered?
You gotta get -- oh man, you gotta get --
I’m getting you buttered tonight.“
This strange first impression is contrasted with the introduction of Helen:
an impossibly glamorous contender for the role of Lillian’s new best friend.
“You’re so pretty.”
[Laughs.]
“You’re so cute.
Oh, you’re so sweet.”
The juxtaposition only brings Megan down further in Annie’s estimations.
[Burps].
“Jesus, Megan.”
“I’m sorry -- I won’t apologize.
I am not even confident on which end that came out of.”
But while it’s tempting to want to befriend
the most beautiful, rich, or popular woman in the room,
“Sometimes you grow apart when you get older, and
maybe she’ll find a new best friend.
And maybe she will be more successful than you are,
and prettier and richer and skinnier.”
it’s a lot shrewder to look for more important qualities in new adult friends.
Because Megan is out-there and non-traditional,
other women underestimate her.
“I’ll just snowball on top of that.
Also, fight club.
‘Surprise!
We’re gonna fight.’
We beat the shit out of her.
She’s not gonna forget that.”
Yet Annie is also becoming an out-there, non-traditional kind of person.
She may peg Megan as the weirdo,
but she’s the one exhibiting truly wild behavior.
“There’s a woman on the wing.
I saw her!
There is SOMETHING they’re not telling us!”
Her breakdown on the airplane reveals a lot going on
under the surface that she’s not dealing with…
and she seems to have no problem
with making very public, very embarrassing scenes.
[Screams.]
“Is it better if I dip it in this chocolate?”
So while Annie might not think of herself
as someone as unconventional and brazen as Megan.
“It’s coming out of me like lava!”
her actions reveal that’s who she is now
(a lot more than she resembles put-together, image-conscious Helen).
The friends we make as adults reflect the direction
our lives are taking in adulthood.
And the real reason Annie resists being friends with Megan is
because she’s not comfortable with this image of herself.
Similar to her new friend, Annie’s outward persona
might strike people as eccentric and messy.
“What, you -- you guys are gonna ride around on bikes
with berets and f-[BLEEP]-ing baguettes
in the basket of the front of your bikes?”
Her loonier behavior also points to her creative personality.
To channel her power, Annie just has to stop trying
to appear so conventionally perfect and let her freak flag fly.
Just as Megan represents where Annie’s at, Helen represents Lillian’s new life
as a wealthy, fairly conventional part of an image-conscious elite.
Lillian makes excuses for Helen, assuring Annie that,
underneath the pretentiousness, Helen is actually cool.
“You know what, she’s actually really cool, Annie.
She’s really --
she’s a good one, I’m telling you.”
And if we dig deeper, Lillian’s mixed feelings about Helen
expose her own two minds about becoming part of Helen’s world.
“I can’t believe Dougie’s boss is a member here.”
“I know, and his parents, too.
And Dougie, I guess.
Gosh, and me, I guess, too, now.”
[Laughs]
She worries that she’s losing some of the “realer” person she was,
but she also enjoys the comforts her new life offers.
[Screams] “Because I went to the f-[BLEEP]-ing salon with her,
and I got my [BLEEP]-hole bleached, too!
And I love my new [BLEEP]-hole!”
while Helen presents the perfect surface image but is a basket case underneath.
Megan is more of an iceberg --
there’s a lot of impressive stuff going on behind the scenes
“I’m going to have to wrap this up pretty quickly, because --”
“What’s that, uh, what are those noises?”
“Annie, I’m not going to get into that with you.
I don’t want to compromise you.”
Like Megan, Annie has a lot of hidden potential
that could make her a powerhouse if she embraces it.
“You’re so good at it.”
We begin to see Megan’s exceptional value as the film progresses.
She’s a model of real confidence.
“Physically, I don’t bloat.”
“Lucky.”
“That is lucky.”
“It’s a gift.”
She goes and gets what she wants.
She’s proud of her achievements.
“I work for the government;
I have the highest possible security clearance…
DON’T repeat that.”
She never second guesses herself when she knows she’s right.
“I’ll take the first watch.”
“I’m not an air marshall.
There’s no -- you don’t need to take a watch.”
“Okay.“
[Whispers] “I’ve got the first watch.”
and she definitely dances to the beat of her own drum
“I met a dolphin down there, and I swear to God,
that dolphin looked not at me, but into my soul.”
A lot of what reads to others as “crazy” about Megan,
is in fact a more intricate knowledge of how the world works.
“I know where all the nukes are, and I know the codes.”
“I won’t say anything.”
“You would be amazed.”
She’s an incredibly accomplished professional.
She may even be richer than Helen.
“I have six houses.
I bought an 18-wheeler a couple of months ago just because I could.”
She’s nurturing, to a fault.
“I did slightly overcommit to the whole dog thing.
It turns out I’m probably more comfortable with six.”
She’s smart, generous with her time,
emotionally available, and a complete individual.
Most importantly, she’s extremely kind.
“Alright, come on, bring it in.
There’s the Annie.
There’s the Annie I knew was there, okay.”
If you look at all of these qualities together,
it’s clear that Megan is a real friend-catch.
Megan is also a feminist role model.
Look at the other women in the movie and their relationships with men:
Annie pretends she’s the “cool girl” to try to land a guy who’s terrible,
“Oh, no, I’m sure I look terrible.
I just woke up.
Are you kidding?
I’m sure I’m a mess.”
Lillian is so insecure in her relationship that she fears
Dougie’s going to break up with her when he’s about to propose,
“He was ignoring me, and I thought he was going to break up with me.”
Becca can’t talk to her new husband about intimacy,
“And then I pretend I’m tired,
but I’m not tired.
I’m not tired.
I’m not tired.”
and Rita presents a fairly terrifying picture of domestic family life.
“What are you doing when you’re having sex then?”
“Thinking about other things and wishing it would stop.”
All of these women offer portraits of unhappy relationships
that lack honest communication.
Then there’s Megan.
She has no qualms about articulating what she wants.
“You feel that steam heat coming?
That’s from my undercarriage.”
“Okay.”
“That can go up and higher.”
In part, her confident self-assurance stems from having overcome adversity:
“Girl named Megan who didn’t have a very good time in high school.
I’m referring to myself when I say Megan, it’s me Megan.”
Megan owned her painful experiences to make herself stronger.
“You know what I did?
I pulled myself up,
I studied really hard, I read every book in the library.”
When we meet her, Annie has also gone through a really tough time --
but she’s let failure get the better of her.
So this is the main lesson Megan has to teach Annie --
how to turn lemons into lemonade.
“They used to try to blow me up.
They threw firecrackers at my head.”
Annie needs to be pushed [--
“I’m trying to get you to fight for your shitty life!”
and when Megan steps up and does that for her,
Annie discovers self-respect and respect for others.
It becomes apparent that Annie has been focusing on the wrong things,
and if you open up to people -- particularly potential friends --
it can alter your perspective on other aspects of life dramatically.
“I’m not going to say I survived, I’m going to say I thrived.”
Movies and TV shows are filled with portraits of female friendships
that are already well developed.
They’re also focused on looking at the birth of new romances.
But the nascent stages of adult female friendship
is woefully underexplored on-screen.
The budding adult bromance gets a little more attention…
“I just added two more guys to my wolf pack.”
But stories about female social interactions
more often deal with frenemies, mean girls, and animosity.
“It’s not my fault you’re so insecure.”
“And I’m sure it’s not your fault you’re so conceited.”
Exceptions to this rule prove how moving and instructive
the story of women making friends can be.
In Legally Blonde, Elle and Vivienne are set up to be enemies,
only to discover they’re on the same side.
In Parks and Recreation, Leslie’s friendship with Anne
begins with the start of the series and overshadows any of the show’s romances.
“It’s not over.
It’s never over.
BFF.
I love you forever.”
The Office features low-key, realistic portrayals
of female friendships in the workplace.
“Nellie’s pretty fearless.
And I think she might be maybe even almost sort of fun.”
[Whispers] “Pam!”
[Laughs]
Storytelling like this is important because
it gives us positive models to look to, in an enterprise
that’s actually very difficult.
In the 21st century, loneliness has become a grave threat to our health --
as devastating to the human body as smoking.
Today, loneliness is even being called an epidemic.
But Megan gives us hope that it’s never too late
to form powerful new connections.
Making friends as an adult requires
letting down a lot of guards we spend years building up.
It’s an act of faith that demands vulnerability --
not unlike what’s needed in the early stages of a romance.
“Here’s a friend.
Standing directly in front of you, trying to talk to you.”
“I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy.”
But the payoff for this hard work is amazing and world-changing --
just like falling in love.
“I put a, uh, a loaded gun in Doug’s carry-on.
The TSA is going to just rip his ass apart.“
[Laughs]
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