Credit: Universal Pictures

You instantly know that a comedy film’s a total bluff when you find yourself an hour or so into it, and you realise you haven’t had a chuckle, let alone a proper laugh. Whatever happened to films that made you laugh so hard you had to pause the TV for fear of missing the next joke? Well, it’s your lucky day since Netflix has brought back a magnificent film from 2011, and we reckon Bridesmaids could teach quite a few modern comedies a thing or two about leaving an audience in absolute stitches.

Directed by Paul Feig, Bridesmaids earned two Oscar nominations and became a huge box-office phenomenon. Fifteen years on, the film has lost none of its comic potency, and what’s adorable about it is how it makes you feel mortified on behalf of its characters while giving you zero chance to recover before the next tragedy.

Yes, yes, you might’ve watched it back in the day, multiple times even, but who doesn’t like to visit an old comedy every now and then? If you don’t, there might be something wrong.

So now, for anyone who needs their memory jogging, Wiig plays Annie, a woman whose bakery has gone bust and whose love life is an absolute shambles, so you’d think being asked to serve as maid of honour at her best friend Lillian’s (Maya Rudolph) wedding might give her something to look forward to.

Well, not when Helen (Rose Byrne) enters the picture! This wealthy socialite seems focused to steal Annie’s place as Lillian’s favourite person, and the lengths these two women go to outdo each other are enough to make you wonder whether either of them remembers whose wedding it is.

The engagement-party speech is one of the best moments in the film, because watching Annie and Helen fight over the microphone while behaving like they’re just being lovely friends to Lillian is nothing but hilarious.

But the best scene’s got to be the bridal boutique, because having a proper slapstick with a massive touch of diarrhoea… You’ve got to give writers massive credit. The sheer horror of watching a dress fitting turn into a gastrophysical situation is something that stays with you, whether you like it or not.

But what makes Bridesmaids such a brilliant comedy even fifteen years later is that beneath all the outrageous behaviour, Annie is someone you can sympathise with, even when you want to yell at her. Her career has fallen apart, and her love life is going nowhere; on top of that, now she’s terrified of losing the one friendship she thought she could count on. Agree or not, we’ve all been there.

And we’d be committing a crime if we didn’t mention Melissa McCarthy as Megan, because that woman thought she had limited scenes in the film, but she makes you chuckle every time she’s on screen.

So do yourself a favour and stick Bridesmaids on Netflix as soon as possible, because fifteen years on, watching these women make complete fools of themselves hasn’t lost an ounce of its charm.