SXSW 2026 Review: DRAG, Lizzy Caplan Shines As A Would-Be Thief Felled By A Bad Back
Sometimes it feels good to fuck over someone who has wronged you, but sometimes it turns out to be a terrible mistake. In the case of first-time feature writer/directors Raviv Ullman and Greg Yagolnitzer’s Drag, Lizzy Caplan and her movie sister, Lucy DeVito, find themselves firmly in the latter camp when Caplan throws her back out immediately after breaking into a shitty man’s house to liberate his valuables as payback for a rather nebulous transgression committed against her.
When we first meet the unnamed duo of Caplan and DeVito they are sitting outside of a rather ostentatious modernist home getting ready to do the job. The plan is for Caplan to break in and grab whatever she can, while DeVito stays ready as the getaway driver. Plan A lasts all of five minutes before Caplan finds herself incapacitated in a bathtub, unable to move, let alone steal anything or even crawl her way to safety. The only way out this pickle is for the reluctant DeVito to get into the house and drag her from the second-floor bathroom all the way down to the waiting car.
What seems like a simple enough Plan B goes all to hell when the man who owns the house, played by the eternally youthful John Stamos, arrives home with a young lady in tow. Now the bumbling thieves have an additional obstacle to maneuver around, but when it turns out that Stamos might not just be an asshole womanizer, but also someone genuinely dangerous, they will be lucky if they can make it out alive.
This is far from the first time a film used we-robbed-the-wrong-house as a starting point to build tension and suspense, however, the thrown out back thing adds a clever twist to that oft-told story.
Caplan is an absolute gem in this role which finds her completely immobile and laying on her back for much of Drag’s run time. She’s a dirtbag. A petty woman just looking to screw over a guy who she thinks deserves it. DeVito is no angel either, she sports a cutting wit and a flair for sarcasm that the character often uses to hide her discomfort with the mess she’s been pulled into.
There’s a palpable chemistry between the two leads, a lived in feeling and a rapport that helps the film support such a small cast. DeVito is a sparkplug, ready to jump into any conversation, quips blazing, while Caplan delivers one hell of a performance while stuck in a position to which many of us can relate.
If the game of Drag was simply for DeVito to get Caplan out of the house with this one very crucial handicap, there is definitely a movie in that, but Ullman and Yagolnitzer turn this screwball comic premise into something much, much darker that provides plenty of room not only for the two sisters to give fully formed performance, but also gives the similarly nameless but very dangerous Stamos a chance to let out his inner ham. It’s a very unique mix of circumstances that takes several shocking turns before the story ends, and there are definitely gasp inspiring moments that catch even the savviest of audiences off guard.
Full disclosure here, I would watch Lizzy Caplan read the phonebook. She is one of our great character actors, always elevating material to levels it sometimes doesn’t deserve. Her performance in 2023’s Cobweb is some of the decade’s finest scenery-chewing, even if the film around her never quite rose to her level. Thankfully with Drag she’s given great dialogue, a compelling arc, and a challenge that she can really rise to (even if her character can’t get off the floor). Everyone is very good in this film, but Caplan is on fire, absolutely commanding the audience’s attention even without the use of most of her body. It’s really, really impressive, and definitely lifts Drag from a being just a clever concept to a must-see thriller.
