There’s a special sauce in the art of the stoner comedy, flavoring its antics with a mirepoix of stoned pontifications, gleefully zooted dissociation, and pure euphoria. Combining the integral laissez-faire disposition and routine dysfunction of the pothead lifestyle with an antithetical, demanding list of high-stakes trials and tribulations is a formula for filmmaking that can produce boundless hilarity. The cognitive whimsy gifted by Ms. Mary Jane often renders the mundane into magical realism for those partaking, if you dare to add psychedelics to the stew. In “The Wrong Girls,” director Dylan Meyer has crafted a buddy comedy that gives you a bite of that world before you commit to the meal.
Frankie (Kristen Stewart), a Stanford dropout, and Molly (Alia Shawkat), somewhere between a munchies fanatic and wannabe chef, are a lovable duo of broke, pot-smoking gig-economists, cat moms, and Celine Dion-heads who are painfully late on their rent payment. Their landlord, Jose, a gleefully earnest weed-lover himself (a scene-stealing Chris Estrada), has already extended generous patience, but eviction looms on the horizon, and the girls are having trouble becoming unstuck.
In order to blow off a little steam, Molly reminisces about her blue cheese pot brownies and chimichurri gummy bears whilst cuddling on the couch with her boyfriend (Zack Fox), and Frankie goes to a Mannequin Pussy show where a case of mistaken identity by a criminal operative disguised as a metalhead (LaKeith Stanfield) leads to her being handed a top secret briefcase full of extremely potent experimental hallucinogens. Later that night, the girls crack it open, and then, of course, indulge, topping it off with some weed for good measure. Blasted out of their minds in a neon-soaked dimension of the world everyone else is blind to, they venture out to make their rent money selling the rest of the drugs. Along the way, they discover that they can communicate telepathically and are being pursued by evil Danish enforcers in matching penny loafers, who are willing to do anything to get their hands on the drugs.
“The Wrong Girls” surveys an odyssey that recalls the female friendship and rent-earning journey of “One of Them Days” with the stoned escapades and federal underworlds of “American Ultra” (also starring Stewart). Despite these influences and strong callbacks to its predecessors, Meyer’s film does contain its own vision, even if it’s a much less compelling one executed with far less laughter and tension than desired.
I imagine Gen-Z viewers like myself might feel about “The Wrong Girls” the way many millennials felt about “Bodies Bodies Bodies”: generationally out of my depth, despite the short leash between us. Unlike the former, which approaches hamfisted generational humor with self-awareness and a deprecating tone toward its characters, Meyer’s film embraces it in a way that is simply endemic to its protagonists and narrative style. That is to say two truths at once: this film knows and caters to a very specific audience (who will revel in it) and isolates the rest (who may struggle to be moved by the humor).
With formulaic jokes abound, there are so many setups and punchlines within the dialogue that it struggles to let the conversations breathe. By far the film’s funniest moment is a hilariously sincere, roundabout monologue about Amsterdam from Jose to one of the Danish goons (whom he mistakes for Dutch). The vast majority of the humor, though, doesn’t play out with the aforementioned effortlessness or fluidity (the way stoned jestery tends to be), nor does the situational comedy of “The Wrong Girls” feel of natural consequence (even under the modified laws of the sci-fi-influenced landscape). The film’s try-hardness is the most discouraging. Talking cats (voiced by Seth Rogen and Kumail Nanjiani) and the generally wearisome approach to the aversion to “adulting” are cringey and heavy-handed. And the wackier the film’s details get, from coerced telekinetic dance numbers, photos of a penis stuck in hummus, and a mad scientist played by Kate McKinnon (with a regrettably cheap execution), the further it sinks into its comedic cranny.
Yet credit must be bestowed to Meyer for her commitment. “The Wrong Girls” isn’t shy. It is loyal to its bits, even when such devotion fails to return on investment. Stewart and Shawkat feel like authentic friends, and the film as a whole has the feel of a bunch of buddies getting the opportunity to indulge in a “one for us” project. But the modicum of vicarious joy from knowing the cast had fun isn’t enough to save the film. And despite a tiresomely long list of gags, it still refrains from being memorable. And as chaotic and dimensional as the events are, Frankie and Molly themselves are less so (rather just default vehicles of a high mind and frantic narrative), failing to join the ranks of The Dude, Harold and Kumar, and Doc Sportello in the stoner hall of fame.
