Bride Hard
The movie I have watched most recently is the 2025 action-comedy film, Bride Hard. In terms of the screen grab, the main character, Sam, played by Rebel Wilson, is in a bright red bridesmaid dress, and slightly behind her sits the deuteragonist of the movie, Betsy, wearing a white wedding dress. They are seated on a speedboat with shocked expressions. The background consists of blurred foliage, suggesting that the speedboat is in motion. Betsy is seen gripping a bomb, reacting to the danger off-screen. We often don’t see feminine-presenting characters in action-heavy roles. “…men are shown to be more dominant and envious than women, and women are shown to be more optimistic and joyful.” Muhammed Haris et al. (2022) This is usually due to the implication of gender stereotyping. Though Bride hard flips the script, including a main female character being dominant as she defeats almost all the adversaries on her own.
The mise-en-scene illustrates the blending of two different worlds. The formality of a wedding, which is conveyed through their glamorous dresses and appearance, versus the rough urgency of a high-speed chase. This creates a sense of visual contrast between the luxurious setting and the chaotic action setting. This signals towards the film’s comedic and absurd tone. The film could be described as kitsch because of its blend of formality, violence, and crude jokes. Sam’s red dress acts as a visual anchor for this high-stress scene despite the motion blur. The neutral setting of an outdoor wedding allows for better immersion and enhanced realism despite the surreal premise.
Both characters in this scene are visibly white women. Their formal dresses illustrate the appearance of traditional femininity. Though they are dressed extremely feminine, they are engaging in a violent high-speed chase, deposing the passive damsel in distress trope that is frequently used in action movies that involve women. Instead, the bridesmaid and bride are doing the rescuing rather than waiting to be saved. This highly contrasts the way female characters are portrayed, especially within Hollywood films. “A classic Hollywood narrative structure establishes the male character as active and influential: he is the controller of the narrative whom the dramatic action unfolds. In comparison, the female character is passive and powerless: she is the object of desire for the male character(s) and merely a hyper-polished adornment to push the narrative forward.” Ida Hansen (2018)
The setting is a private island owned by the deuteragonist’s family, and it suggests an ecology that mixes a glamorous wedding venue with a wild premise. The use of a speedboat on grass terrain emphasizes the danger and dissolution of civilized space. Overall, the image itself blends femininity with high-stakes violence. It possesses a mise-en-scene that is both playful and chaotic, which intentionally disrupts the “wedding-as-sanctuary” trope.
The scene of the two characters on the speedboat lasts slightly longer than a minute, but during the first minute there are approximately 35 cuts. This includes the switching of POVs and different shot sizes to capture all the action. It begins with a close-up of the leads’ faces and transitions into a wide shot of the entire chase, though it frequently cuts between close-up shots of different characters, faceless shots of different actions, and landscape shots. The shot from the screengrab is an intermediate shot close enough to allow viewers to read emotion but far enough away for the action to be visible. The shots from this scene are all relatively short and purposefully choppy to reinforce the chaos of the scene. The camera movement is slightly shaky and unsteady, reminiscent of a handheld camera or digitally stabilized camera. The shaking and choppiness can reinforce the immersion and visual excitement of this scene. From the reviews and personal viewing, the cuts are very noticeable. Other continuity issues, such as weapons disappearing and reappearing and noticeable stunt doubles, are extremely apparent as well. These flaws tend to pull viewers out of immersion and make it apparent that you are watching a series of short, edited clips and not a seamless shot.
According to Box Office Mojo, Bride hard severely underperformed. It grossed a little over 2 million USD, but the movie’s original budget was approximately 20 million USD; therefore, it underperformed by almost 18 million dollars. As of now it has a score of 14% on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning less than 60% of reviews were positive. It had a projected opening night revenue of around 20 million dollars, but due to limited theatre showings and lack of viewer anticipation, it made approximately 16 thousand dollars, which was severely under budget.
This film can both positively and negatively impact viewers. Action movies that display excessive violence tend to desensitize viewers to aggressive behaviours. And young impressionable viewers may be more susceptible to desensitization which can affect how they view violence in adulthood. “Thus, high levels of exposure to violence, both in real life and media, may be more likely to produce desensitization…” Sylvie Mrug et al. (2015) Despite that, seeing female characters in a position of power or dominance can aid in disrupting traditional gender stereotypes seen in Hollywood. Though it comes with connotations of violence, it can reinforce the idea that women can be both femininely presenting and take on dominant roles within films.
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Bibliography
Hansen, Ida. Master’s thesis feminism – is the leading female …, May 31, 2018. https://projekter.aau.dk/projekter/files/280801806/Master_s_Thesis___Ida_Sanggaard_Hansen.pdf.
Haris, Muhammad Junaid, Aanchal Upreti, Melih Kurtaran, Filip Ginter, Sebastien Lafond, and Sepinoud Azimi. “Identifying Gender Bias in Blockbuster Movies through the Lens of Machine Learning.” arXiv.org, November 21, 2022. https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.12504.
Mrug, Sylvie, Anjana Madan, Edwin W. Cook, and Rex A. Wright. “Emotional and Physiological Desensitization to Real-Life and Movie Violence – Journal of Youth and Adolescence.” SpringerLink, October 19, 2014. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10964-014-0202-z.
n/a. “Bride Hard.” Box Office Mojo. Accessed November 26, 2025. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt21317634/.
colby konig
I am analyzing Nevaeh’s paper on “Bride Hard”, the action-comedy movie. She did a good job explaining the scene so that I could understand what was going on and the relevance of the scene to her paper. She related it back to concepts we had learned in class such as kitsch and gave examples. How she described the scene caused me to have a very good understanding of the movie and I understood her comments about feminism and race stereotypes. She explained how the camera movement and the cuts contributed to the movie and the scene that she chose specifically. She explained how the movie extremely underperformed and the Box Office Mojo numbers, giving percentage examples. She expanded on her scholarly reference and explained how action movies can affect the viewers. She discussed that it may affect children more throughout their development as they may get a flawed sense of what violence is too far. She also added about gender and race stereotypes and how they were incorporated in the movie, as well as the specific scene that she chose. Overall, she gave a great and detailed description of how the scene she selected was relevant to our assignment.