‘The Wrong Girls’ Review: Dylan Meyer Revives the Stoner Comedy
Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat pair up for the year’s best hangout movie with The Wrong Girls, a movie that functions best when you don’t try to think about it too much.
NEON might have buried its release, but Dylan Meyer’s feature directorial debut, The Wrong Girls, is one of their most interesting 2026 releases. In isolation, it might not be a very good movie. The plot doesn’t make much sense, the action scenes are haphazardly shot and choreographed, and it feels more like a “five dollars and a dream” type production than anything else. However, none of these matter when you realize that Meyer is attempting to revive the long-lost art of the stoner movie, popularized by Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, and eventually reinvigorated in the 1990s. The sub-genre has, since then, been in a state of dormancy (read: mediocrity), but Meyer looks to finally give life back to a severely underappreciated form of comedy.
This is a movie that functions best on its vibes rather than on the efficiency of its shoestring plot, which sees stoner best friends Frankie (Kristen Stewart) and Molly (Alia Shawkat) get caught up in a scheme involving Danish drug dealers looking to sell an unknown psychedelic substance they find in a briefcase. It might be a bit too convoluted for me to summarize the plot in the review, but the one thing you have to understand is that the briefcase was given to the wrong girl, one who looks exactly like a federal agent (also played by Stewart) who has been working on a case with an individual known as “Dave” (LaKeith Stanfield).
Being stoners, Frankie and Molly chug down the psychedelic substance, which, undiluted, is deadly. However, since they smoke all day and night, the THC dilutes the product and gives them telepathic powers, where they can communicate through their minds, while also hearing the voices of their cats Dio (Seth Rogen) and GG (Kumail Nanjiani). This is also where The Wrong Girls goes off the rails, but part of the enjoyment of watching such an object is to let your mind palace run wild and surrender yourself to Meyer’s (lack of) logic.
It wouldn’t be fair to say that some of it doesn’t work. The larger political context surrounding the central MacGuffin falls completely flat. Geena Davis appears in a bit part that’s mildly funny, but doesn’t add much to the overall picture. Kate McKinnon plays a scientist whose task is to make large chunks of exposition feel digestible, but it reads more as clunky than genuine. The film also attempts to mix its stoner vibes with high-stakes action, but most of it is horribly shot and lethargically edited. You can tell the budget isn’t necessarily high (pun intended) for a film like this one, but there are still a few tactile things Meyer could’ve done with the camera to make its action feel more memorable, especially during the end where Frankie and Molly possess telekinetic powers.
But that doesn’t mean the movie should be entirely dismissed. Where it fails to deliver exciting, kinetic action, it also succeeds in putting us inside both Frankie's and Molly’s headspace through a visual style that’s very much in line with intense hallucinatory experiences, with one particular juxtaposition acting as a major shock to the system. It’s stuff like this that gives The Wrong Girls a real sense of purpose, especially when its narrative begins to get as convoluted as Tsui Hark’s Time and Tide, another movie where you eventually surrender to its logic and intense aesthetic comparisons and let the director’s imagination run wild in your mind.
To be honest, though, The Wrong Girls probably wouldn’t have worked as a stoner comedy if the chemistry between the two leads wasn’t so rock-solid. Thankfully, both Stewart and Shawkat are fantastic together, with the former finally flexing her comedic muscles spectacularly after many failed attempts at mainstream offerings. Working with her partner, Stewart seems more than comfortable letting loose and having fun with Shawkat, who is equally as hilarious, and simply has the time of her life hanging out with her friend. One is eager to see what Stewart has been doing with Quentin Dupieux in Full Phil, which, despite a middling reception at Cannes, seems like a great vehicle for the actress to showcase her broader comedic skills.
That said, the film offers the purest form of comedy possible, entirely hinged on the relationship between the two leads. It constantly flows in so many unexpected (and genuinely moving) directions that we ultimately buy into their stupidity, even if it can feel a tad overwhelming at times. The vocal cats are quite hit-or-miss, but its flaws act more as a feature than a bug, because what’s on screen is so achingly sincere. There hasn’t been an American comedy in years that feels as alive and exciting as The Wrong Girls, one that takes bold risks with its visual palette and isn’t afraid to overstimulate the audience.
If its direction of fight scenes was somewhat competent and its story less convoluted (though that’s part of the experience), we might have a generational masterpiece on our hands. The film isn’t that, but it deserved so much better than being dumped by NEON with little to no fanfare. We know, of course, that the studio is betting big on their Cannes acquisitions (Hope, All of a Sudden, and Fjord), but they could give their other titles more love. This one certainly needs it, especially in an era where few creative risks are taken both behind and in front of the camera. And with Nicky Murphy’s I Love Paris, no 2026 film has made smoking look so essential (and healthy) to one’s life. Smoke a joint (or pop an edible), and surrender to the mania. You won’t regret it.