Michael's Movie Grade: B
An uneven but quite funny, dumb comedy.
In this film, a marijuana addicted college dropout (Kristen Stewart) is mistaken for someone else and ends up in possession of an experimental drug. When her and her stoner roommate (Alia Shawkat) take some of this drug, they find themselves on the run from some very dangerous people.
This is not a sophisticated film by any means and there is no deeper ambition here than to get some silly laughs. With this it is definitely a success. This may not be constantly funny, and quite few jokes fall flat. However, when the jokes hit, the film gets really funny. Much of this is due to Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat's performances. These two make a truly perfect comedy team. They play off each other perfectly and it is such a joy to watch them together. When it comes to this over-the-top style of comedic performance, the result can either be funny or incredibly annoying. However, these two actresses strike the right balance of being annoying to other characters but never to the audience. If you put two lesser actresses in the leads, then the whole film wouldn't have worked. However, these two make the dumb low brow comedy quite funny. At the same time there is a real sweetness in their friendship. I was surprised to find myself soon really caring for these characters.
As stated before not all the comedy works here. Like many high concept comedies this film starts out not that funny but gets funnier once the story truly gets underway. The girls being able to hear their cats speaking to them after taking the drug is a joke that gets old quick. These cats (voiced by Seth Rogan and Kumail Nanjiani) are never as funny as it feels like they are meant to be.
This marks the feature length directorial debut for Dylan Meyer (who also wrote the film). I think it is safe to say we might have a very talented emerging comedy director with her.
Not every joke hits but this film is still a delightful comedy.
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