With Bridesmaids out now and Bad Teacher set to premiere later this summer, the conventional wisdom goes like this: We're living in a time when comic actresses are finally appreciated, honed, and challenged. They're not resigned to wifely roles or pally Judy Greer-types; they're hilarious as full-fledged protagonists who deservedly wield top-billing. This is why conventional wisdom is often a problem.
For all the funny women in film who've made their mark in the past five years, it's fair to say that women starred in better (read: funnier) films in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. There's no contemporary parallel for Barbra Streisand, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, Diane Keaton, or even Goldie Hawn (if you consider the critical respect still paid to much of her work). Bridesmaids may signal a comeback, but I hope it makes theatergoers consider that beyond the ten hilarious female performances of the past five years that are listed below, women still need more of a big-screen comic presence. That said, these ten are damn funny.
10. Emily Blunt as Emily Charlton in The Devil Wears Prada
Whether she's playing Queen Victoria or a ballet dancer in The Adjustment Bureau, Blunt exhibits a steely cool that often gives way to immense vulnerability. In The Devil Wears Prada, her steely steel gives way only to more steel, before we watch her crumble after a car accident. She may not eat, but Emily Charlton has spunk -- which is edifying enough. (Skip to 7:58 for some Blunt Prada goodness.)
9. Amy Poehler as Angie Ostrowski in Baby Mama
The Upright Citizens Brigade alum has been funnier -- Regina George's velour-festooned mother in Mean Girls, anyone? -- but Amy Poehler's no-frills performance as a trashy, sink-peeing surrogate makes you happy that women still "go there" for comedy. It's what SNL matriarch Gilda Radner ordained!
8. Frances McDormand as Linda Litzke in Burn After Reading
Sporting a blonde haircut inspired by Linda Tripp's post-Lewinsky makeover, Frances McDormand plays a woman who decides, "I've gotten about as far as this body can take me," and undergoes plastic surgery treatments on nearly every square-inch of her body. She's always been a whiz with earnestly audacious roles, bu McDormand is possibly the funniest, most poignant character actress of her generation.
7. Kristen Wiig as Jill in Knocked Up
In just a couple of quick scenes, Kristen Wiig undermines Katherine Heigl's budding E! anchor character to the point of disbelief. Her weight-loss instructions for Heigl -- "We would just like it if you go home and step on the scale, and write down how much you weigh, and subtract it by like, 20. And then weigh that much" -- comprise the funniest single line of dialogue in the past five years.
6. Anna Faris as Shelley Darlington in The House Bunny
She may be one of Hef's ingenues, but Shelley Darlington is a candid, sometimes-Exorcist-voiced loon with optimism aplenty. If Anna Faris could pull off "funny" in the Scary Movie franchise -- which, I'm still shocked to say, she could -- then a bawdy, ridiculous role like The House Bunny should be comparably effortless for her. It certainly seemed that way to me.
5. Leslie Mann as Debbie in Funny People
Her work in Knocked Up is equally fulgent, but Leslie Mann's turn in Funny People -- where she tries on every accent from Jamaican to British to cockney in one amazing scene -- reminds us of her signature character dichotomy: pragmatism mixed with utter loopiness.
4. Emma Stone as Olive Penderghast in Easy A
For as unassuming a pleasure as Easy A is, it's just the movie we needed during this year's thoroughly laugh-free award season -- even if its Hester Prynne reference and lingo-heavy dialogue are almost definitively contrived. Emma Stone takes the cynical antihero of Olive Pendergrass and makes her a relatable -- albeit gorgeous -- thief of imaginary v-cards everywhere. I'll never think of Natasha Bedingfield's "Pocketful of Sunshine" the same way again.
3. Anna Faris as Jane F. in Smiley Face
As a film? Smiley Face? Underwhelms. But as a vehicle for Anna Faris to ride a pot-high to the zaniest, stupidest observations in film over the past half-decade? Gregg Araki's Smiley Face shines. Faris may have won a greater (and more universally adoring) audience with The House Bunny, but here she explores the magical mystery of marijuana with little pretense or restraint. Comedy in its purest, most therapeutically ingestible form.
2. Ellen Page as Juno MacGuff in Juno
Juno MacGuff is a mesmerizing character, and her greatest attribute somehow remains her least discussed: She is unbelievably -- though believably! -- funny. High- schoolers are so casually misrepresented on the silver screen that Diablo Cody's pensive burnout teen struck some as possessing a Mensa-level sophistication. That begs the question: What's the problem with having a Mensa-level sophistication? Really, Juno just possesses her own sensibility, which is more startling than any otherworldly intelligence and truer to real high-schoolers. Ellen Page's performance is the breakout comic role of the past decade, and in no time at all she's become the obvious choice for directors ranging from Christopher Nolan to (and we called it!) Woody Allen.
1. Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada
It's a role that would read as campy Disney fluff without proper embodiment, but to say Meryl Streep transforms The Devil Wears Prada the minute she struts onscreen in bordello-red heels is an understatement. As Runway magazine's unapproachable doyenne Miranda Priestly, Streep adds intelligence, ferocity, and terror to another otherwise tame jaunt into the life of a downtrodden intern (Anne Hathaway). Streep is so grim, so poised, and so effective as an Anna Wintour proxy that you can't help but quake at her immense brio -- and crack up at her austere totalitarianism.