THE WRONG GIRLS Review: Stoner Caper Hits the Laughs and Love

Frankie (Kristen Stewart) was once a star engineering student at Stanford, until the pressure made her flunk out. Molly (Alia Shawkat) is an amazing and inventive chef whose personality is not suited to the high-pressure stakes of the contemporary restaurant kitchen. And so these two soul mate besties eek out a living in their quaint California home, mostly earning a living between bouts of weed consumption in any and all forms. But maybe they're getting a little too comfortable and complacent, both with supporting each other and keeping each other only in this tiny comfort zone.

So when a case of mistaken identity turns to our heroines taking a ridiculous psychedelic new drug that also makes them telepathic, it means some serious danger is coming their way. And of course, hilarity ensues. The Wrong Girls, the feature directorial debut of Dylan Meyer (writer of Moxie and XOXO) is weird, funny, and adorable, finding just the right level of quirk to its characters while maintaining the necessary fidelity of the stoner comedy tradition.

Meyer gives some time (arguably a little too much) to set the proverbial stage: the women live that stoner California life, with their cute house, decorated with the weird and epic (hello giant cut-out of Celine Dion). Despite Frankie's inventive mind that can conceive and construct glorious bongs and Molly's talent for inventive edibles, financial reality has caught up with them. Their symbiosis might have tipped to the point of holding each other back, if they can't get their acts together.

When you have been living together as long as Frankie and Molly have, understanding every verbal and non-verbal cue and eccentricity, both trying to help each other and being each other's rock, the lines can blur between help and hindrance. They each seem to pass to baton as to who is going to the 'reasonable mature adult' in their guidance; Molly encouraging Frankie not to be scared, Frankie reminding Molly not to use her (admitedly very kind) boyfriend Josh (Zach Fox) as a crutch.

Of course, as soon as they drink this squid liquid that allows them to not only hear communicate via their thoughts, but also to communicate with their cats, fluffy and judgemental Dio (Seth Rogan) and sleek and scared GG (Kumail Nanjiani). Stewart and Shawkat are a delight in every frame as they navigate this new reality, or pseudo-reality through which they are now experiencing the world. To see them from an outside perspective, they might seem a couple of epic, burnt-out losers; but to know them from the inside is to see their odd yet ill-fated logic and you can't help but root for them, as they fashion party dresses from garbage bags or summon joints from metres away.

It could have gone extreme with its characters, and of course there is a delightful array of those who stand out like sore thumbs in the Los Angeles stoner world: the cadre of Danish henchmen, Kate Mackinnon's oddly 'straight man' scientist (it is a testament to her talent that she tone down her natural hilarity just enough to keep focus on the stars and yet still be a jewel in this proverbial crown), Rogan and Nanjiani's cat personalities provide just the right amount of strangeness and seemingly accurate portrayals of cats (if you're a cat lover, you will understand) without being overbearing. Meyer finds the right balance between outrageous and oddly believable (you will also never look at Tony Hale or hummus in the same way again).

But this film belongs to Stewart and Shawkat. Both have shown their comedic muscles before, but neither have looked so comfortable on screen. Frankie Molly are a little gross, definitely caring and more than a little lost and scared of a world that has no time for them to pursue their dreams in their own way; there is a depth to these characters rarely afford those in stoner comedies. Meyer and her actors make Frankie and Molly not just two people who live to get high, but those who have also made a home with each other and their connection (yes, in which weed plays a huge part), but there is so much more to them than the weed, and even if they get involved in romantic relationships, they are each other's ride or die. The actors are a joy to watch, the characters both lovable and exacerbating in the best way.

Make no mistake: The Wrong Girls is the kind of silly, often stupid (complimentary), weird, gross, and bizarre film we expect when we get two people taking too many drugs. It might be a little slow in its pacing at times, but it will benefit from a big audience, and it brings some needed late summer love and joy to the big screen.

The Wrong Girls opens in select theatres in the USA and Canada on Friday, August 14th.