★★★ (3 out of 4)
Maybe you didn’t figure Kristin Stewart and Alia Shawcat as a 21st century Cheech and Chiong, so won’t you be surprised by “The Wrong Girls.” It stars Stewart and Shawcat as stoner girls who...I’ll let the film’s writer and director Dylan Meyer set it up because the way she does it shows you exactly why seeing “The Wrong Girls” is the right move even when the script scrambles its logic. Here’s Meyer:
“I met Maggie McLean and I loved her immediately. A lot of people do, but I was really aggressive about it. Territorial. And certain. I displayed uncharacteristic vision and follow-through—I drove up to Berkeley and made a case for us living together (in Los Angeles) when I barely knew her. I manipulated circumstances to make it happen. I was crazy, but I was also right.
“We lived together for five happy, harmonious years—the happiest of my whole life—and I wrote a movie about that time. It’s called ‘The Wrong Girls.’ I took some liberties with the plot but the overall vibe is pure memoir.
“Eventually, Maggie and I grew up—she met real-life Josh (he rocks) and moved out. Got married. Then I forced her to work with me, so we started a production company together called Nevermind Pictures. Now we’re releasing ‘The Wrong Girls’—the movie I wrote and directed about our friendship that she produced.”
Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawcat go at this hot box of crazy in ways that make you laugh yourself stupid.
OK, now I take over. Swipe right on “The Wrong Girls”—you’ll be perfectly zooted, smacked, geeked or whatever the kids are calling the highest of the high. Silly? It is. How silly? Seth Rogen and Kumail Nanjiani do voices of cats. And did I mention that Meyer and Stewart are married in what passes for real life? Yeah, that too.
The plot itself is about chemical telepathy. Hold on. Frankie ( Stewart) and Molly (Shawkat) are roomies in Los Angeles, in a dump apartment dubbed Casa de Chill Zone, just like Meyer said about her and Maggie McLean. Frankie is a “Kwik Things” delivery driver. Molly does spreadsheets and aspiring chef things. These two love getting fully baked. Cheech and Chong, remember? What brings them closer is a psychedelic drug derived from deep sea squid testes. It’s the invention of a mad scientist, played by Kate McKinnon at her Mad Hatter-est, high on her own ineffable comic supply. And we’re all the better for it.
Am I drifting? I am. “The Wrong Girls” makes you feel unmoored in a dreamy state of comic cloud cuckooland. That’s a good thing. And the drug brings Frankie and Molly even closer. Now they’re telepathic. Literally. The bad thing is the drug isn’t theirs. Mistaken identity got it to them. Turns out Frankie has a smart doppelganger who wears glasses. I could explain further, but really, why? All you need to know is that bad Dutch guys need the drug back to control the world. That’s when the shooting starts.
This thing reminded me of “Pineapple Express,” a favorite, and “Barbie” in a brilliant kind of brainless way. Stewart and Shawcat go with this hot box of crazy in ways that make you laugh yourself stupid. Stewart, the arthouse indie Oscar nominee, has never been so cockeyed and slaphappy on screen. It’s a good look on her. Hell, it’s a contact high just watching her and Shawcat bliss out.
Characters come and go in this thing: Lakeith Stanfield as a mercenary named Not Metalhead Dave, Zack Fox as Molly’s nice boyfriend, Josh (Zack Fox). You may lose track. I know I did. There are times when “The Wrong Girls” looks like it doesn’t know what it’s doing. It’s the movie equivalent of bumping into walls and not caring. But how do you resist a girl bestie comedy stoned on its own shitfaced silliness? You don’t. Coherence is overrated. This Dylan Meyer may be a first timer, but she has something. I loved her immediately. You will too.