At first glance, Bridesmaids might seem like another dopey rom-com movie about weddings, most likely filled with some rehashed predictable dreck. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Bridesmaids takes the old and makes it new again, breathing life back into a genre that had just about been trodden into the ground. Feeling like a pilgrim returned from the Promised Land, let me tell you: I’ve seen what perfection looks like, and I want more.

Life-long best friends Annie (Kristen Wiig) and Lilian (Maya Rudolph) find themselves embroiled in wedding planning when Lilian gets engaged. Though she has been asked to be maid of honor, Annie begins to suspect there isn’t going to be as much of the old closeness as Lilian’s new life is taking her further away from Annie, not only location-wise but lifestyle-wise as well. Her new friends are refined and wealthy, and Annie is a bit of a catastrophe, with a failed cake business, some weird roommates, a spacey mom, and a hook-up buddy (Jon Hamm) who makes her feel worse about her life. As Annie manages to wreak disaster after disaster through her attempts to get the bridesmaids together for fun events, her relationship with Lilian becomes strained, and fellow bridesmaid Helen (Rose Byrne) continually attempts to take over for Annie.

Bridesmaids is a treat. The plot doesn’t suck! It makes sense! There’s no weird, dumb stuff you have to accept and get past in order to enjoy the movie; it all flows and works together and is pretty tangibly awesome. To name any scenes in particular would be to detract from the movie, so let’s just say I had a very hard time picking a favorite scene as there was about, oh –- THE ENTIRE MOVIE TO CHOOSE FROM. The assortment of friends and relatives are just weird enough to be absolutely delightful, and the sense of comedic timing throughout the group is impeccable. The performances are spot-on across the board, with nary a weak link in sight, and as such it makes it hard not to mention everyone, but instead I’ll pick out a few highlights.

Kristen Wiig is hilarious and heartbreaking in her awkward attempts to survive the seemingly endless onslaught of problems she inadvertently causes, but it is Rose Byrne (who seems to be quickly proving that she can accomplish anything with alarming alacrity) who very nearly steals the show from Wiig. Conniving and ruthless, yet sickly sweet, her range as an actress is beginning to seem endless. And Melissa McCarthy, best known for her role as Sookie on Gilmore Girls, where have you been? Who knew you could act?! Incredibly funny. Chris O’Dowd, whom I always liked well enough in The IT Crowd is wonderful here: charming, goofy, and lovable as the shy and very normal love interest for Wiig.

And oh my goodness, this movie is funny, and not only an incisive takedown of the stupidity of overblown weddings. A few times the audience laughed so loud you couldn’t hear the next line. Most movies work so hard for their laughs that they are pretty much begging you on bended knee to find them amusing in any way. Fans of Freaks and Geeks will swoon when they learn that this one was directed by Paul Feig, and produced by Judd Apatow, but the real star of the show is the screenplay. Kristen Wiig and fellow screenwriter Annie Mumalo have done what felt impossible for so long: written a smart, funny, charming film about women that doesn’t manage to simultaneously hate women. So much of the genre seems to rely on the audience collectively eye-rolling and jabbing each other in the ribcage while saying gleefully, “Woman, ammiright?” And Bridesmaids ostensibly seems rife with opportunities to do so. But it doesn’t. Where it might seem obvious to slip into farce and self-hatred it skates away cleanly, making it clear that so many of the problems faced by the characters are because they are people, not because they are women. And men don’t come off badly in this either, garnering remarkably fair treatment.

Men like Christopher Hitchens routinely say things about how “Woman aren’t funny.” And yet women like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Kristen Wiig, and so many others are working their hardest, and they go right on being funny and incredibly awesome. Thank goodness for Kristen Wiig and her talented cohorts in Bridesmaids, who make conversations flow naturally and punch lines hit home hard. Make no mistake, these women are funny as hell.

Grade: A