The single most important thing you need to know about this film is that it is not The Hangover with women. If you go with that in mind, you’ll probably be disappointment. If Bridesmaids resembles anything, it is tonally closer to Producers Judd Apatow’s Funny People, a film about messed up people and their messed up relationships. It’s packed with cringeworthy moments, and while men may laugh along, beware - some of the humour sails dangerously close to literal truth as most women would no doubt be loathe to testify. It’s not that it’s not funny, it just that it’s darker and a little more offbeat than the debauched shenanigans of Todd Phillips’ ode to Vegas stag parties.

It’s particularly brilliant at capturing the latent psychological guerilla warfare at which women excel. The platonic triangle that emerges between Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph and Rosie Byrne is brilliantly warped, and yet never over-the-top.

Meanwhile, Wiig and Chris O’Dowd engage in a brutally everyday romance as Wiig’s bankrupt baker attempts to overcome her self-loathing for long enough to make a fresh start with O’Dowd’s patrol cop. Messed up, petty, juvenile, ordinary and sweet, it’s easy to root for them, and even better, it’s easy to believe in their sweet’n’sour relationship.

In fact, Bridesmaids’ main failing is that director Paul Feig and writers Wiig & Mumulo have tried to cram two really good films - a sweet romcom and a bitchy exploration of female BFFs - into one pared down movie. Having created such a rich dynamic between the three main female leads, and the romantic duo, means there’s virtually no time for anything else. Vast chunks of the movie seem to be missing, despite its 2 hour running time. Movie trailers are often created months ahead of the final cut, meaning scenes occasionally go astray, but here, barely anything seems to have made the transition from trailer to big screen. Melissa McCarthy’s gauche sister-in-law and Jon Hamm’s jerk of a lothario only get screentime by dint of being the punchline for some of the best jokes in the movie. Aside from O’Dowd’s sweet-natured cop, every male role is underwritten, not unfair considering the short shrift most women get in male ensemble comedies, except that apart from headlining trio, most of the female parts are vanishingly thin as well. Elsewhere, entire storylines simply vanish or end up marooned down a narrative cul-de-sac - an implied romance involving Annie’s mother, and the other two bridesmaids are the most obvious victims of what must have been a fairly brutal editing process.

Don’t get me wrong: Bridesmaids is an entertaining film, and a welcome two fingers to the usual patronising, saccharine schtick more usually served up to female cine-goers, but just brace yourself for something slightly less comfortable than the the Hangover comparisons might imply…