The Wrong Girls

I’m asking this as someone who has never been high in my life: is this really what everything looks and feels like?

The Wrong Girls follows two best friends, Frankie and Molly. They’re broke, they don’t really have any particular goals in life besides somehow making it to their next paycheck and getting really, really high in the evening using some absolutely insane homemade bong that Frankie put all of her engineering skills into. One day, Frankie goes to a Mannequin Pussy concert to see her ex, only to run into a girl who looks absolutely identical to her. The problem is that this doppelgänger is apparently a big deal in biological circles and is supposed to receive prototypes of an incredible new drug that allows people to communicate telepathically with each other and even develop those abilities further with the help of other substances. Of course, the two women get mixed up, and the development that seemingly half the planet is after and that is being protected by the UN accidentally ends up with a completely stoned Frankie, who can barely remember where she even got it from. Of course, she and Molly try it, and soon two different teams start hunting them down.

The film marks the directorial debut of Dylan Meyer, Kristen Stewart’s wife, who also supports her wife by starring in the lead role. And, honestly, for a debut, this is pretty damn good. The Wrong Girls is basically a classic stoner comedy — the problem is that we haven’t really had a genuinely good one in a long time. Also, when we talk about stoner comedies, it’s usually men who are at the center of them. Here, we get Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat, who are fantastic together as (in the best possible sense) two dumb bitches who somehow get incredibly lucky in different shitty situations.

I think a lot of people will inevitably compare this movie to Smiley Face. And indeed, there’s a certain Gregg Araki homage in the film’s visuals. But at the same time, this is a very acid, sun-baked, pretty well-shot, dumb-as-hell, absolutely not-taking-itself-seriously California indie comedy. It’s by no means hilarious, but it’s fun enough.

And at roughly an hour and forty minutes, it never really makes you think about how little is happening on screen — because somehow, it’s either funny enough or engaging enough to keep you watching. The film is very chaotic and, at times, perhaps weirdly shot. But it works.

It also reminded me of Kristen Stewart’s Love Lies Bleeding from 2024, which had a similarly drugged-out energy, except that movie slightly overcomplicated its plot once it became increasingly unclear what the hell was going on. Here, everything is very simple and linear, with absolutely everything right there in your face. But you don’t come to a comedy like this expecting anything particularly cerebral. You come to watch a stupid, funny, but well-put-together comedy, and that’s exactly what The Wrong Girls delivers.

A fun, cartoonish cast, dumb conversations, trippy cuts, Kate McKinnon looking like she just walked out of an SNL sketch — everything is pretty stupid, but stupid enough that you never feel stupid watching it. You just have fun, without thinking too much about it, and in that sense, it’s a win.

7/10