"Today is the last day we will ever be this young!" says Ryan (Regina Hall), exhorting her friends Dina (Tiffany Haddish), Lisa (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Sasha (Queen Latifah) to seize the moment on their trip to New Orleans. It's the sort of pronouncement that comes easily to Ryan, a successful author described as "the second coming of Oprah," and Hall sweetly sells the line _ and, with her trio of co-stars, the movie.
"Girls Trip," a "Bridesmaids"-meets-"The Hangover" comedy from Malcom D. Lee ("The Best Man"), is a raunchy, good-hearted celebration of friendship; as funny as it needs to be, and possibly funnier. (I'll confess I missed quite a few lines, due to the laughter at the screening I attended _ a good sign.) Its plotline is familiar: four longtime friends, separated by busy lives, come together for what they're sure will be a perfect weekend. Sasha is a gossip blogger who's in financial trouble; Lisa an uptight nurse and divorced mom; Dina, who gets fired from her job in the early scenes, a charismatic loose cannon. In N.O. for the Essence magazine festival, the quartet parties, gets in trouble, drinks too much absinthe, discusses some don't-try-this-at-home sexual practices involving citrus fruits (!), deals with Man Problems and, ultimately, reaffirms their devotion to each other.
What's fun here is both the easy charm of the four women (two of whom have a long screen history together; watch for Smith and Latifah in a shout-out to 1996's "Set It Off"), and the range of comedy styles they display. Smith's subtle way with a line, or a twitch of the mouth, is a treat, as is Haddish's skill at physical comedy: Dina's one of those people who speaks with her entire body, and walks on heels with rubbery determination. You wait for her to trip, but she doesn't; neither does the movie.
