Why I like movies about losers

I like movies about losers. Not depressing movies about social issues, you understand – not movies that make you want to slit your wrists because my God the world is a miserable place with precious little opportunity for redemption. No, I mean wry, funny movies about lovable losers whose failures point to the fundamental unfairness of the universe in a way that makes the fundamental unfairness of the universe easier to bear. (And I say this knowing that somebody who lives in a shack in Diepsloot knows far more about the fundamental unfairness of the universe than I ever will, and that to even write about unfairness is to be all whiny and blonde and ignorant of the fact that the problems I have are #whitegirlproblems and are therefore not problems at all, not in the greater scheme of things.)

Movies about successful people remind me of how considerably less than perfect my own life is – I’ve been marooned in the midst of a more or less continuous existential crisis for the past eighteen months, ever since everything went so hideously pear-shaped – whereas movies about losers make me think, “OK, so things could be worse”. That’s why I enjoyed Bridesmaids. The lead character, Annie, is a disaster, but she’s also funny and frail and human.

Inevitably, I had to compare myself to her. Annie is much better off than me in some respects. She can wear tiny little skirts and she has no visible cellulite, whereas I have spent the past ten months eating in order to fill the gaping void at the core of my being, have gone up two dress sizes and can no longer both wear jeggings and be regarded as a responsible citizen who takes the feelings of her fellow human beings into consideration. Also, Annie has a friend with benefits in the form of a man who looks like Don Draper – mainly because he’s played by the actor who plays Don Draper – whereas, compared to me, the inhabitants of the local convent are wanton hussies.

Things do even out. Her bakery business went bust and she works as a salesperson in a jewellery store to make ends meet; she’s also a year older than me, at least in real life. She’s single; I’m divorced. She is eventually forced to move in with her mother; I live with my grandmother.

Of course, when it comes to cars, I score. Annie spends a lot of screen time behind the wheel of a filthy old Toyota with broken taillights. In contrast, I drive a really nice car – the niceness of which continues to serve as a rather ironic juxtaposition to every other aspect of my life. I did a lot of driving around Oxfordshire when I visited the UK for my brother’s wedding recently and I desperately missed my Land Rover; had I been driving it, I’m sure that the 19th century stone cottage in Kingston Bagpuize and the Labradors and the investment banker husband who commutes on the train to the City would have been compelled to materialise out of thin English air. (Oxfordshire is where David Cameron and Rebekah Brooks live. There, all women who drive Land Rovers are married to investment bankers. It’s some sort of rule.)

There is one OTT scene in Bridesmaids which revolves around food poisoning, vomiting and diarrhoea, but I’ll forgive them for that because the relationship between the female characters is so painfully funny and real. It’s hard not to empathise with Annie, especially when she is faced with a rich, beautiful and otherwise utterly perfect woman who competes with her for the affections of her best friend. Anyone who’s ever felt inadequate will not be able to watch this movie without feeling their insides knot up in embarrassed empathy. Like so many of us, Annie is her own worst enemy and she duly spends most of the movie making an almighty hash of things. (Oh, I could see so much of myself in her.)

So, even though I watched Bridesmaids sitting in the front row, thus ending up with a crick in my neck and a throbbing pain in my temple; even though somebody in the audience farted loudly during the final cathartic scene between the two best friends, causing the dialogue to be lost amidst gales of laughter, and even though when I emerged it was into the deadening ennui that seeps from every brick, every floor tile and every fake duck of Montecasino – that little corner of Fourways that shall remain forever twilight – I felt a tiny little bit better. Somehow, watching stories about the failures of others makes it just a little easier to live with those of my own.