The Wrong Girls Is a Chaotic, Hilarious Stoner Comedy

The Wrong Girls is the kind of movie that feels like someone threw a bunch of completely ridiculous ideas into a blender, hit purée, and somehow ended up with a genuinely great time at the movies. It’s weird, chaotic, stupid in all the right ways, and just self-aware enough to know exactly what kind of movie it wants to be. I had an absolute blast with this.

At the center of the madness are Frankie (Kristen Stewart) and Molly (Alia Shawkat), two best friends whose lives are already a little messy before everything completely goes off the rails. Money is tight, rent is due, and Molly is considering moving in with her boyfriend, which naturally threatens the delicate ecosystem of their friendship. Then Frankie accidentally gets caught up in a bizarre situation involving a mysterious drug, some very questionable people, and enough criminal nonsense to turn an otherwise ordinary day into an absolute disaster.

From there, The Wrong Girls just keeps escalating.

And that escalation is a huge part of what makes the movie so much fun. Dylan Meyer doesn’t seem particularly interested in making anything too serious or grounded. Instead, she embraces the absurdity and keeps throwing increasingly bizarre situations at these two women who are clearly not equipped to deal with any of them. It has that wonderful quality of a comedy where you start wondering just how much more ridiculous things can possibly get, only for the movie to immediately answer that question by getting even more ridiculous.

But the real reason this works as well as it does is Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat.

Their chemistry feels completely natural, like they’ve been best friends forever. There’s an easy rhythm between them that makes even the smaller interactions hilarious. Frankie and Molly can spend an entire scene arguing, getting high, talking absolute nonsense, or doing something incredibly stupid, and I was perfectly happy just hanging out with them.

Stewart is especially hilarious here. She brings this loose, chaotic energy to Frankie that feels completely different from some of the more dramatic roles we’ve seen her in. She’s incredibly funny without constantly trying to make sure you know she’s being funny, which makes her performance even better. Frankie is a mess, but Stewart gives her enough vulnerability underneath the stupidity that she never becomes just a collection of jokes.

Shawkat is equally great, bringing a slightly more grounded energy to Molly. That contrast between the two is where so much of the comedy comes from. Molly often feels like the person in the room who realizes just how badly everything is going while Frankie is already making the next terrible decision. Watching them bounce off each other is easily one of the best parts of the movie.

And underneath all the weed, weird science, criminal schemes, and general chaos, there’s actually a pretty sweet story about friendship.

That part surprised me.

Molly and Frankie aren’t necessarily the healthiest friendship in the world, and the movie doesn’t pretend otherwise. They’re codependent, they frustrate each other, and they’re both at points in their lives where things are changing. Molly potentially moving in with her boyfriend forces them to confront the possibility that the life they’ve built together can’t stay exactly the same forever.

That gives the ridiculousness some emotional weight. Because underneath all the jokes, you actually care about these two people.

The supporting cast gets plenty of opportunities to go completely nuts too. (Kate McKinnon) is having a particularly good time, while (Zack Fox), (LaKeith Stanfield), (Tony Hale), and (Chris Estrada) all bring their own flavor of weirdness to the increasingly unhinged situation. The movie is filled with these little bursts of comedic energy that make it feel like everyone involved understood the assignment and decided to have as much fun with it as possible.

And then there are the cats.

I genuinely wasn’t expecting the cats to become such a bizarre part of the movie, and while some of those bits worked better for me than others, they’re very much in line with the movie’s anything-goes attitude. The Wrong Girls is constantly flirting with the line between hilarious and completely fucking ridiculous. Sometimes it lands perfectly. Sometimes it pushes the joke a little too far.

That’s ultimately where my few reservations with the movie come in.

There are stretches where the plot feels more complicated than it needs to be, and not every joke hits with the same force. A couple of the side characters and story threads feel like they’re from an entirely different movie, and some of the more absurd detours slightly interrupt the momentum. None of this ruined the experience for me, but it kept the movie from reaching that next level where every single element feels perfectly locked into place.

Thankfully, the stuff that works really works.

Meyer’s biggest strength is understanding that the movie doesn’t need to be constantly chasing a huge joke. Sometimes the funniest thing is simply watching Stewart and Shawkat react to the absolute insanity happening around them. Their friendship gives the movie a warm center that keeps the chaos from becoming exhausting.

There’s something really refreshing about watching a comedy that is this unapologetically stupid while still having genuine affection for its characters. The Wrong Girls isn’t trying to make some grand statement about friendship or adulthood. It just understands that sometimes your best friend is the person you can sit around doing absolutely nothing with—and also the person you’d probably follow into the world’s dumbest situation without asking enough questions.

I had a f*cking great time with this.

It’s messy. It’s weird. It’s ridiculous. And when it clicks, it’s genuinely hilarious. Stewart and Shawkat are the heart of the whole thing, and their chemistry alone makes this worth seeing. The Wrong Girls isn’t a perfect comedy, but it is exactly the kind of stoner comedy I want more of: a goofy, chaotic, genuinely funny hangout movie with two fantastic performers at the center of it.

Grade: 4/5