‘Bachelorette’ by Leslye Headland, With Kirsten Dunst

Her plus-size companion, Becky, chimes in: “I’ll get the burger and fries with her cheese, her bacon. Don’t bring the dessert menu. I already know I want the cheesecake.” The two friends have a history of bulimia going back to high school.

The convivial mood suddenly shatters when Becky (Rebel Wilson) announces that she is about to marry her wealthy, handsome boyfriend, Dale (Hayes MacArthur), and flashes an engagement ring.

Regan, stricken with horror and envy, forces a sick, twisted smile. It was her intention to be the first in their high school clique to marry.

And so begins the barrage of viciously funny satire in“Bachelorette.” This film version of Leslye Headland’ssuccessful Off Broadway play — part of a projected cycle covering the Seven Deadly Sins, it dealt with gluttony —“Bachelorette” comes at you with the crackling intensity of machine-gun fire. Maybe the safest way to watch it is by peeking out from a behind a sandbag.

Drugs, booze and sex lead the list of things voraciously and carelessly consumed by Regan and her two best high school friends and bridesmaids-to-be, Katie (Isla Fisher) and Gena (Lizzy Caplan). Becky, the fourth member of their clique from the class of ’99, could have been included only to provide someone to mock.

Even now, this unholy triumvirate of bitter, jaded friends refers to Becky behind her back by her nasty high school nickname, Pigface. And when a male stripper disguised as a policeman arrives at her bachelorette party and uses the term as instructed, the party fizzles.

The acidic humor in this version of “Bachelorette” is much darker and more truthful than that of its most obvious forerunner, “Bridesmaids.” These foul-mouthed, hard-partying women are closer to American relatives of Edina and Patsy, the intrepidly trendy, perpetually stoned adventurers of “Absolutely Fabulous.” They could also be the spoiled great-grandchildren of Clare Boothe Luce’s “Women.” “Bachelorette” is more tartly written, better acted and less forgiving than male-centric equivalents like the “Hangover” movies.

Its comic apex is a monologue about the finer points of giving oral sex delivered by Gena to a stranger sitting next to her on the plane from Los Angeles to New York. Ms. Caplan’s portrayal of this smart, self-loathing woman who conceals her vulnerability under a toxic, too hip veneer of sarcasm evokes the combative attitude of Janeane Garofalo, minus the political edge.

Hours before the nuptials, the three women’s bad karma catches up with them when Becky’s wedding gown is dragged out of a closet and accidentally torn while Regan and Katie cram themselves into it for a Facebook photo. By the end of the movie, the garment has endured more wear and tear than most dresses in a year. Most of the remaining story is a frantic wild goose chase — with detours — to repair and clean the gown, which has been stained by a cocaine-induced nosebleed.

The movie’s race around Manhattan is a good excuse to give “Bachelorette” some air, along with a screwball energy lacking in the play, which was set entirely in one room. When not looking for a dry cleaner or a seamstress, Regan and her pals crash Dale’s bachelor party and follow him and his groomsmen to a strip club, all the time guzzling and snorting their brains out.

Regan hooks up with her cold, handsome male equivalent, Trevor (James Marsden), in the club bathroom while yapping on a cellphone. Katie passes out while being pursued by Joe (Kyle Bornheimer), a slavishly adoring high school classmate whom she doesn’t remember until he reminds her that he sold her pot. This very pretty airhead is always at her wits’ end.

“I don’t know what to do with someone I really like except sleep with them or get really drunk,” she frets.

Gena’s old boyfriend Clyde (Adam Scott) shows up as a member of the groom’s party, and as these exes warily revisit their troubled history, the movie reveals signs that it has a heart. At the core of the film is Regan’s arrogant Little Miss Fixit, who in a confessional moment peevishly complains: “I did everything right. I went to college. I exercise. I eat like a normal person. I’ve got a boyfriend in med school, and nothing is happening to me.”

Like the other bachelorettes — and like so many overprivileged malcontents nowadays — she is looking in the wrong place for salvation: outside rather than within. To revise William Blake’s famous quotation: The road to excess leads not to the palace of wisdom but to the basement of discontent.

“Bachelorette” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has abundant profanity, sexual situations and drug taking.