Review: Bridezilla (2019)

Movie Review - Bridezilla (2019): Jessica Milla & Rio Dewanto
Read Time:4 Minute, 3 Second

Initially released as an online podcast drama, Bridezilla expands into a full-fledged rom-com written by Lucky Kuswandi (Selamat Pagi, Malam!, Galih & Ratna) and Fai Tirta. Helmed by Love for Sale director, Andibachtiar Yusuf, the rom-com brings along the original voice actors, including Jessica Milla, Sheila Dara, and Rafael Tan. Along with Mantan Manten, Bridezilla observes the studio’s wedding-themed dramas released in 2019.

Bridezilla centers on the phenomenon where a bride figuratively turned into a Godzilla, self-sabotaging her own wedding with a series of whimsical demands due to her persistence of having the dream wedding. It revolves around a wedding organizer, Dara (Milla), whose life has been dedicated to making nuptial fantasies come true. Disastrously, her career goes downhill after a socialite’s wedding she handles turned into a trainwreck before the Mother of All-Wedding, Anna (Widyawati, stealing the look of Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly). She accuses the nouveau-riche bride (Lucinta Luna, doing a self-portrayal) as a bridezilla; but, deep inside, she blames herself for not being able to organize the dream wedding, which might make the company she built with her BFF, Key (Sheila Dara), and a colleague, Aang (Rafael Tan), the most legit wedding organizer in the country.

Sheila Dara alongside Jessica Milla in Bridezilla (2019)

Bridezilla owns a unique premise revolving around the toxic wedding lifestyle, which the movie doubles down with doses of another toxicβ€”socialite lifestyle. The thing is the movie bets on its tongue-to-cheek narrative with deadpan seriousness. In bouncing back from the disaster, Dara strangely proposes a dire ideaβ€”using her own wedding with Alvin (Rio Dewanto) as leverage to win the ‘wedding of the year’ accolade from Anna’s opulent magazine, Wedding Star. The solution is pretty comical, if not cheesy, but that signifies how Dara’s motivational descends to finally become a bridezilla herselfβ€”sabotaging her own career, her own life, and her own relationship with her closest people. This could expand into a full-fledged character study wrapped in sugar-coated rom-com, but Bridezilla slips into a series of simplification.

The shift from being the anti-bridezilla to become the full-fledged one isn’t always smooth. The trigger of most conflicts does not get proper exposition and the script does not treat the protagonist justly; therefore, audiences did not get a chance to root for her. Most of the time, we’ll see Dara as an obsessed woman who will even go the extra miles, stealing the attention of Jakarta’s most obtrusive socialites. Yet, when she does steal their attention, she suddenly gets uncomfortable for some reason not shown to the audiences. When Dara finally gets to confront Keyβ€”her long-time best friend and supposed-to-be bridesmaidβ€”in one of the movie’s supposed-to-be most heartbreaking scenes, the moment does not hit the right spot for two reasons: first, the idea of bridesmaid isn’t something that makes sense to the target culture; second, we have no idea that Dara and Key are, like, soul sisters aside from their professional relations. It goes as if audiences are led to despise the idea of a bridezilla, or even worse, dehumanizing them.

To make matters worse, some elements in Bridezilla are often distant, even when they become integral parts of the story. Widyawati’s impersonation of Miranda Priestly is stunning as individual performance, but it feels alienated from the whole context. In one scene, I had to second-guess if her cynical character actually mocks Dara’s nonsensical proposal or, otherwise, sincerely praises it. I just realized if it’s actually a compliment when the editor finally cancels it upon seeing Dara’s engagement ring. The ring itself poses another conflict that has never been dug out properly before it magically resolves. The same goes to Lucinta Luna’s performance, which ends up being some mere prolonged gimmick. Bridezilla can force her as a background cameo, but the story decides to give her an arc as a ‘rival wedding’ only to actually mock her with borderline ‘unreal woman’ jokes. Not to mention that the joke almost insensitively crosses the line.

Conflicts will come and go. Rio Dewanto’s Alvin will make some entrance with unzipped pants for no reason or chant to AC Milan scene while half-ignoring the sorry girlfriend only to finally forgive her while still celebrating the goal. Rukman Rosadi’s father character becomes occasional deus ex machina. Aimee Saras leads some unconvincing socialite society. Rafael Tan performance feels awkward, especially during the ‘no eavesdropping’ scene. Only Sheila Dara manages to constantly make a character worthy of sympathy. As the ‘wedding of the year’ unravels, I did not care anymore if the wedding deserves the title. Luckily, Sheila Dara wedding-crashes it, even if she cannot save Bridezilla from being the trainwreck.

[imdb style=”transparent”]tt10589924[/imdb]

Further movie information: Bridezilla on filmindonesia.or.id

6 responses

  1. […] including Sarwendah (Kelly Tandiono, The Night Comes for Us), Hermawan Susanto (Rafael Tan, Bridezilla), AB Wiranata (Nathaniel Sulistyo), and Alan Budikusuma (Dion Wiyoko, Cek Toko Sebelah), who will […]

  2. Hello Kak Paskalis Damar. I really enjoyed reading your review! I even inspired to create my own blog from your existing website. I also want to achieve mastery on writing a review, as you already did. Your word is REALLY that good, even i mistakenly you as a native before. But i recognize you’re not when you reviewed Indonesian movie, as in this Bridezilla review.

    I have a question about this:
    “but, deep inside, she blames herself for not being able to organize the dream wedding, which might make the company she built with her BFF, Key (Sheila Dara), and a colleague, Aang (Rafael Tan), the most legit wedding organizer in the country.”
    Is this sentence incomplete? It should’ve been “which might make the company she built with her BFF, Key (Sheila Dara), and a colleague, Aang (Rafael Tan), ‘FAILED TO ACHIEVE’ the most legit wedding organizer in the country.” (sorry for the capitalization. How to bold/italic words on reply to highlight it?)

    Another questions that more important: how do you manage to create this systematic review? Can you share your outline? And please give tips & tricks for beginners to make a good movie review.

    Thank you so much!

    1. Paskalis Damar Avatar
      Paskalis Damar

      Hi Rheza Lubis! Thank you for reading the blog. Much appreciated πŸ™‚
      Just so you know, I just started to blog in English when I was composing my final paper during my uni years. I needed to write in English to polish my writings (you know during the end of uni years, we didn’t have a lot of lectures, right?) for fearing I might rust off the skill hehe

      Anyway, thank you for the note. Highly appreciated. However, I will stick to the OG writing. It’s rather complicated but I was referring to the act of “to organize the dream wedding — yadda yadda yadda — the most legit wedding organizer”.

      I realize sometimes I compound too many clauses in one sentence that it causes confusion. Still working on that department hehe

      I don’t consider my writing systematic, but I tend to filter my thought. I always create some kind of mind map before writing. The thing about writing opinions is: there seems to be endless things to write, but my suggestion: stick with what makes the writings you. Omit anything that isn’t meant to highlight your voice. I might share an example one day πŸ™‚

      Keep writing!

      P

      1. Thanks for noticing and replying! I really appreciate that.

        What is OG writing, by the way?

        And if you got some leisure time, please kindly check my blog and give me some valuable inputs. I really waiting for your examples and tips πŸ™‚

        Once again, thank you so much, Kak πŸ™‚

  3. Thanks for noticing and replying! I really appreciate that.

    What is OG writing, by the way?

    And if you got some leisure time, please kindly check my blog and give me some valuable inputs. I really waiting for your examples and tips πŸ™‚

    Once again, thank you so much, Kak πŸ™‚

    1. Paskalis Damar Avatar
      Paskalis Damar

      I don’t have a lot of comments recently so yea I’m up for it!

      OG as in original gangster lol
      I’ll visit soon. Keep blogging!

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