Kristen Stewart could rightly be call the queen of slacker movies. “Wrong Girls” is her third playing a stoner slacker character. You’d think she’d have it down by now.
And for the most part she does.
Stewart pulls off her character “Frankie” with aplomb thanks to her co-star Alia Shawkat, who plays sidekick Molly. They work effortlessly together in a fluid dynamic that recalls great comedic duos like Abbott and Costello or Martin and Lewis.
Stewart was criticized early in her career for stiffness in front of the camera, think 2012’s “Snow White and the Huntsman.” But Shawkat and Stewart’s wife Dylan Meyer, directing behind the camera, are a liberating force.
At 36, Stewart seems a little old to be playing an obviously younger character, but she still has a fresh face, and well… she is the queen.
In fact, Stewart and Shawkat’s zany interactions anchor what is otherwise a disjointed script and chaotic plot. If the film holds up at the box office, a sequel with better writing would be worth the money to see these two, again.
So far, critics love it and hate it. It’s scored a 58 rating on RottenTomatoes — that’s rotten territory — but people who’ve seen it give it a 65 on the site’s “Popcornmeter,” and a 3.6 out of 5 rating.
Thumbing through the reviews, this audience member summed up the film the best: “The movie is great and funny and trippy eanough to make you giggle and feel good in your seat…if your under the influence. Very lesbihonest forward, but we expect nothing less from KS LOL…kinda weird tho she still playing a weird stoner lol.”
Most of the official critics zeroed in on Meyer’s directing and writing. She wrote the script a decade ago, she said in one interview, based on her life at the time as a struggling writer in Los Angeles.
The film has won over a few heavy hitting critics.
Natalia Winkelman, of The New York Times, gives it a thumb’s up: “The Wrong Girls earns points for blithe creativity, even during its dopier bits.” Read the full review here.
And, Angie Han of The Hollywood Reporter also finds something to like: “Proudly stupid and surprisingly sweet, Dylan Meyer’s stoner buddy comedy is a tribute to friendship best enjoyed with your own ride-or-die by your side — joints optional,” she writes. Full review here.
Stewart will always find an audience, no matter what she does on screen. She has a built in fanbase since her “Twilight” days and, she is earnest, if nothing else, even in comedy roles.
Don’t be surprised by the movie’s lesbian vibe. Although there are no overt lesbian scenes between Frankie and Molly, the subtext runs throughout the film, which isn’t surprising given the cast and filmmaker.
Stewart publicly came out as bixexual in 2017 during her opening monologue on “Saturday Night Live.” Since then she has played lesbian characters in at least six films, most notably “Love Lies Bleeding ” (2024) and “Lizzie” (2018).
Stewart met Meyer on the set of “American Ultra,” in 2013 and they married in April a year ago. Shawkat is openly bisexual and Kate McKinnon, who appears in a cameo role, is openly lesbian.
“While Frankie and Molly might date men in the movie, those male characters are treated as complete afterthoughts,” writes The Gay City News. “The two women live in a state of emotional codependency, and the telepathic mind-reading drug serves as a literal manifestation of their already profound psychological bond.”
Her sexual orientation is neither here nor there in this film, but it bears mentioning just on the grounds of full disclosure.
There’s no getting around the fact that the movie plot is similar to Stewart’s other slacker movies, notably “Adventureland” (2009) and “American Ultra” (2015). She played opposite Jesse Eisenberg in both films.
Substitute Alia for Jesse and you’ve got “Wrong Girls.”
Frankie and Molly are broke best friends living together in an LA bungalow. They spend most of the time getting high. But the rent is overdue and they have 24 hours to get straight and come up with the money.
They end up in a club and get their hands on a briefcase full of what appears to be vials of a drug through a case of mistaken identity. So what else? The girls (women?) give it a try.
The drug turns out to be hallucinagenic (they see talking pets) and also bestows powerful telepathic mind-reading and telekinetic abilities.
That’s a notable twist on the genre so kudos to Meyer for thinking up a sci fi angle. From there, the film devolves into standard chase scenes (the bad guys want their drugs back) peppered with stale jokes and goofy antics.
Frankie and Molly are no Cheech and Chong, who turned drug humor into an art form, but if you like Kristen Stewart (and we know you do) you’ll want to see the film for that reason alone. Shawkat is just icing on the cake.
Check out the trailer.
Some images on this page are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Keith Girard has four decades of experience as an award-winning reporter, editor-in-chief, and senior media executive. Keith’s career began in Washington, D.C., where he was a reporter for The Washington Post and a contributing editor for Regardie’s and Washingtonian magazines. He also worked as a writer/producer in CNN’s Washington Bureau and has written non-fiction books on the U.S. Marines in the Gulf War and Donald Trump and two novels, “The Heidelberg Conundrum” and “The Curse of Northam Bay.”