Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat co-star in “The Wrong Girls.”Credit: NEON
Following in the footsteps of Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar and Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion,writer/director Dylan Meyer’s The Wrong Girlsis a sublimely stupid buddy comedy. And thank the movie gods!
When it comes to male-fronted buddy comedies, there’s no shortage of cinema celebrating loyalty alongside the giddy pleasure of acting really, truly idiotic with your friends. Beyond movies like the Cornetto Trilogy, practically every Kevin Smith movie, or any Will Ferrell comedy, there are also several franchises in this vein, sparked by Dumb and Dumber, Bill & Ted‘s Excellent Adventure, and Wayne’s World.
Female-fronted buddy comedies are fewer and farther between in general, and even more so when it comes to movies that allow the actresses at their center to truly embrace their inner bozo. Sure, in Cluelessand Bridesmaids,the heroines make silly mistakes. But they’re ultimately relatable and even enuty, and dream-guy-secured happy endings
Cheers then to Meyer, who, for her directorial debut, looked at celebrated actresses Alia Shawkat and Kristen Stewart (Meyer’s real-life wife), and saw what terrific dum-dums they could be.
The Wrong Girlsembraces dirtbag girlhood.
Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat co-star in “The Wrong Girls.”Credit: NEON
Stewart and Shawkat star as Frankie and Molly, two best friends who share a home, two cats, a bong, and an utter lack of ambition. Frankie (Stewart) is a Stanford dropout with an engineering background and a survival job with a DoorDash-like delivery company. Molly (Shawkat) does data entry, while her successful boyfriend Josh (Zack Fox) rubs her feet — and urges her to move in with him. But Molly’s real passion is for concocting unexpected food combinations, like weed brownies with blue cheese baked in.
Living in an apartment decked out with cat-themed art, these besties are pretty blissful, despite the occasional pressure to scramble for rent money or a student loan payment. That is, until a case of mistaken identities lands these roomies with a mysterious suitcase, the contents of which have them stalked by dangerous goons. (See also: Drive-Away Dolls.) Frankie and Molly decide the strange glowing liquid inside must be party drugs — perfect for selling for some quick cash. But of course, it’d be irresponsible not to try it first.
Turns out, this hotly sought psychedelic gives them the power to communicate telepathically with each other — and their cats Dio (voiced by an irate Seth Rogen) and GG (voiced by a skittish Kumail Nanjiani). So, high out of their minds and chaotically superpowered, they have to evade the Danish thugs who want the drugs, and team up with a hot but huffy mercenary (LaKeith Stanfield).
Over the course of their adventure, these two will curse, bicker, get dangerously stoned, crash parties while wearing dresses made of black garbage bags, squat in the street to piss, and generally reek of a party gone very foul. They frequently have food caked to their faces or large sticks stuck in their hair, with scratcher tattoos littering their limbs. They casually favor tacky fashion, like an oversized t-shirt illustrated with big fake boobs bursting out of an Elvira-like deep-V neckline.
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While their look is very different from the middle-age core of Barb and Star’s culottes or Romy and Michele’s girl-pop verve, there’s nonetheless a gleeful defiance in this dirtbag aesthetic. Like these foremothers of kooky comedy, they don’t dress for the male gaze or even to appease the mean girls of the world. They dress in whatever jumble of fabric and trash makes them happy.
With The Wrong Girls,Meyer takes two inarguably beautiful women who can pull off a high-fashion look as a red carpet might demand, and gives them the gender parity of being goofy and gross in ways often denied to women onscreen.
Kristen Stewart is hilarious as a fried fuck-up.
LaKeith Stanfield and Kate McKinnon co-star in “The Wrong Girls.”Credit: NEON
Though most often revered for her dramatic roles like Princess Diana in Spencer,Stewart has done comedy in Charlie’s Angels and Happiest Season,and on Saturday Night Live.Here, however, Meyer offers a sandbox to get weird and explore a sense of humor that itches at the uncomfortable.
In its The Man Who Knew Too Littlesetup, The Wrong Girlsallows Stewart to play a “weirdo bimbo,” as a smug Stanford alum (Tony Hale) dubs her. Then, Stewart also plays Frances, a young woman who looks shockingly like Frankie — if she wore cat-eye glasses and had a clean girl aesthetic and her shit together.
This running bit of doppelgänger rivalry allows Stewart to showcase her range, simply and silly. Where Frances is sharp and poised, Frankie is a storm of flung limbs, shocked sneers, and emotional outbursts. Under Meyer’s direction, Stewart is able to embrace the buffoonery that she didn’t seem to settle into in her Day Drinking With Sethsegment. There she seemed to bristle at the doofiest bits, as if she feared being the butt of the joke. Here, she is loose, funny, and even unhinged.
Props to Shawkat, a storied actor in the offbeat comedy space since Arrested Development. With a dazed smile and wide eyes, she makes Molly the perfect partner to absorb Frankie’s frantic energy. Where Stewart scores laughs in her intensity, Shawkat’s silliness is softer, stretching out in clownish physical comedy and bewildered reactions. She’s the Lloyd to Stewart’s Harry, in terms of Dumb and Dumberdynamics.
Danish thugs use hand sanitizer in “The Wrong Girls.”Credit: NEON
Together, they click terrifically, creating a comedy duo as challenging as it is hilarious. Admittedly, this movie is a little slow to start, as Meyer lingers on some backstory that is more laborious than strictly necessary. But once these “professional bozos” are rolling into Act 2 with their moronic master plan, they’re bolstered by sensational supporting turns from not only Rogen, Nanjiani, Hale, and Stanfield, but also Kate McKinnon and Geena Davis.
All of this grooves into a climax that is equal parts, exciting, subversive, and — I cannot stress enough — stupid. Meyer strategically sets up familiar mistaken-identity markers, including a showdown wherein the average joe (or jane) faces a sneering, evil minion in a sharp-pressed suit. These familiar beats actually make the mayhem between them all the funnier, as if The Wrong Girlsis trying to be a traditional action-comedy, but its heroines will not be contained! And that gremlin energy culminates in a climactic dance number, which is not as fantastical as those in Barb and Staror as magically choreographed as the one in Romy and Michele.But that wouldn’t make sense for these two friends. This is the dance they deserve.
As a Céline Dion track plays unabashedly, theirs is a dance that laughs in the face of cringe. They are free, but not graceful. They are united, not in sync. They are the wrong girls. And if loving them is wrong, then being right is really stupid.
Kristy Puchko is the Entertainment Editor at Mashable. Based in New York City, she’s an established film critic and entertainment reporter who has traveled the world on assignment, covered a variety of film festivals, co-hosted movie-focused podcasts, and interviewed a wide array of performers and filmmakers.
