Rough Night takes an unexpected turn

“Rough Night” touches hearts amid witty dialogue and images but most importantly, the intimate yet somewhat conflicted interactions among friends at a bachelorette party in Miami.

After they spend a few hours snorting cocaine and getting buzzed from alcohol, they invite a stripper to the house they are staying in and accidently kill him.

Actually Alice (Jillian Bell), Jess’ supposed best friend does. When Jess (Scarlett Johansson) shys away from sexual teases from the stripper, Alice jumps on the guy and knocks him down.

His head hits a sharp corner and within seconds, blood oozes from his body and every woman in the room freaks out about what they should do, especially Alice.

The way Alice is set up with her costumes nicely mirrors her character and gives the audience clear clues about her personality—she desires to be the center of attention. She is redhaired, and wears bright bold colors and big-printed flowers or stripes throughout the movie.

She claims herself as Jess’ best friend but when Jess’ friend from Australia arrives, Alice does her best to ensure she makes A’s life as uncomfortable as humanely possible. But apart from being a crazy best friend, she brings humor to the screen because of who she is.
After she realizes she has killed the stripper, she panics and becomes boisterous with dark humor, especially with her statement, “What did you do today? Oh, well I killed a guy!”

The others bring their conflicts as well. Blair (Zoe Kravitz) is fighting custody over her young son with her ex-husband.
As the mother and son are partying, Blair’s ex announces that he will alert the authorities that he should have had their son twenty minutes ago, showing you the jerk he is.

Another friend, Frankie (Ilana Glazer) is on the run from the police because she lives illegally in a state. Meanwhile the Australian friend Pippa who Jess invites (Kate McKinnon) is not necessarily problematic, but she is a hippie who meditates quite often to the point of either annoyance or adoration, depending on perspective.

Who each of the friends are helps bring out the humor in the story, depending on the situation they find themselves in.
When the group attempts to dump the body through a speed boat, Pippa insists she can drive and gases the boat which ends up flinging her on the beach. Her explanation? The boat she drove in Australia had different operations than the American one.
There is also an odd couple who is fascinated with polyamorous relationships who try to invite Blair in one of their sexual escapades. Blair refuses, but the irony is when they realize that couple has a security camera and may have footage of them disposing of the body, she joins the couple in their fantasies.

In the process, however, she makes a personal discovery about herself (side note!).
Towards the middle of the movie, the friend group discovers the stripper who came to their door is not who he said he was. He came there for much different reasons and his cronies arrive later and cause trouble even deeper and messier than the women originally believed.

Towards the end of the movie, Alice reveals in her card to Jess how much being in her life has meant since college time as roommates. I will not spoil the reasons but she does relay them in strong detail.
After a heated and defeated moment, Jess storms out to take a shower to “look at least pretty” for her mugshot. That’s when she opens Alice’s card then walks in on the rest of the group who are in a tight situation—literally—and it is up to her to save the day with her own brilliance.

Despite that every friend has their quirks, all the friends unite in their own strange way at the end. In a way, the relationships formed becomes a bit reminiscent of the relationships from “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” just with a much stronger adult theme present.

Do not walk out of the theatre without watching the credits. There is a hilarious scene that happens after Alice returns from an outing with Jess and her now husband Peter (Paul W. Downs) that involves a frantic search for food and ending with penis macaroni. Also the electric glow graphics are fun to watch as they highlight images the humor referenced throughout the movie and the memories of the characters linger longer in your head.