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Week 3 Day 3: Take it to an Extreme – BRIDESMAIDS
1. Please watch this scene and provide your insights into what makes this scene great from a writing perspective.
2. Read the other writers insights and make notes of how you will take a scene to an extreme.
3. Rethink or create a scene that goes to an extreme using your new insights and rewrite the s
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4 Replies
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Bridesmaids – Food Poisoning Scene
What makes this scene great is how OUTRAGEOUS it is. We’ve never seen this type of comedy before with females. The scene begins with the bride and bridesmaids shopping for dresses in a posh white carpeted dress shop. Annie (Kristin Wiig) has taken them out for lunch. They have food poisening. The gals start showing signs they may be getting sick. They wait so long to admit they are actually sick. Feeling like they are going to throw up they run for the bathroom down the hall. The elegant dress shop saleswoman now wants them out and tells them to go across the street to the bathroom. One gals jumps up on the sink to relieve herself from diarrhea, while two others struggle for access to the one toilet in the bathroom. It ends with bride to be, Lillian (Maya Rudolph) who is trying on a very expensive French couture wedding gown, running out into the street toward a bathroom where she soils her dress. Annie, from a distance, watches Lillian and says, “You’re really doing it, aren’t you? You’re shitting in the street.”
What I learned from rewriting my scene is to take it to an extreme, make it outrageous, go beyond what has ever been done before. Create a scene that escalates on a gradient from normal to extreme.
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The writer takes a seemingly mundane situation – trying on bridesmaid’s dresses – and turns it into a hilarious yet chaotic disaster. The progression from a simple conflict over dress choices to a full-blown food poisoning catastrophe is skillfully executed.
The escalation is evident in the gradual deterioration of the characters and the situation:
Physical Symptoms: The scene starts with Megan’s large burp, setting a comedic tone. However, it quickly intensifies as characters experience symptoms of food poisoning, with Annie going from feeling warm to visibly sweating.
Conflicts: The initial conflict over the dress choice between Annie and Helen escalates as everyone succumbs to illness. The conflict shifts from a financial dispute to the urgent need to avoid ruining the elegant bridal shop with vomit and diarrhea.
Character Reactions: Each character’s reaction becomes increasingly extreme, from Megan using the sink as a toilet to Lillian running into the street and defecating in her expensive wedding gown. The characters are pushed to the edge of their composure.
Setups and Payoffs: The shady restaurant from a previous scene sets up the food poisoning. This is Annie’s mistake (she chose the restaurant) but insists that everyone just has the flu – that it couldn’t possibly have been the food.
Dialogue and Actions: The dialogue is sharp and witty, with lines like “This sinks a goner. It’s coming out of me like lava!” adding humor amidst the chaos. The characters’ actions, such as Becca vomiting on Rita’s head, contribute to the escalating absurdity.
Character Expressions: Each character is pushed to the edge, expressing their desperation and discomfort in unique ways. Annie’s refusal to admit she’s sick, Helen’s relentless attempts to make Annie throw up, and Megan’s vivid descriptions of her stomach issues create a rich tapestry of character reactions.
Overall, the scene is a brilliant example of taking a seemingly normal situation and pushing it to the extreme for comedic effect.
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I feel this works best in comedies – like here, or maybe in the horror genre where you can always push the boundaries further…
Going completely to the wall is not advisable in many genres, because it becomes forced and discredits the story. But at the same time, it’s true that it’s worth constantly surprising the viewer and going down paths that they wouldn’t have dreamed of or dared to think about… so in the meantime, it’s worth pushing the boundaries.
Here, the creators not only took things to the next level by putting women in this situation (this kind of humour used to be the preserve of men), but also dressed them in expensive and beautiful clothes in the middle of a chic salon… which made it all the more ridiculous that the toilet was inaccessible and small and they were so many…
What I learned from this scene is that it’s always worth it to add a little extra. To raise the stakes, to make the situation more dangerous, more hopeless.
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The conflict definitely grows as each additional woman feels her symptoms. The extreme enters in when all need the same bathroom at the same time. The shopkeeper’s horror at the probable outcome escalates the tension. The conversation quickly switches from elegance to gross, another extreme for women dressed to accent their beauty.
The action moves the scene forward. The dialogue clarifies the viewer’s assumptions. The situation takes the women out of their default character and unmasks them. For women, unmasking is another extreme.
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