Movie Review: ‘The Wrong Girls’

(L to R) Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat star in ‘The Wrong Girls’. Photo: Neon.

Opening in theaters on August 14 is ‘The Wrong Girls,’ written and directed by Dylan Meyer and starring Kristen Stewart, Alia Shawkat, LaKeith Stanfield, Kate McKinnon, Tony Hale , Seth Rogen, Kumail Nanjiani, and Geena Davis.

“Best buds. Worst adults.”

Release Date: Aug 14, 2026

Run Time: 1 hr 39 min

Related Article: Kristen Stewart, Alia Shawkat and Dylan Meyer Talk ‘The Wrong Girls’

Initial Thoughts

(L to R) Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat star in ‘The Wrong Girls’. Photo: Neon.

Throw Cheech and Chong, ‘The Big Lebowski,’‘Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion,’ and ‘Smiley Face’ into a blender – or more appropriately, the labyrinthine bong that sits on a coffee table belonging to the title duo – and you might get something like ‘The Wrong Girls,’ the surreal, wacky directorial debut of Dylan Meyer (who also wrote the screenplay).

Meyer’s mix of stoner farce, friendship comedy, and anarchic ‘weird LA’ isn’t exactly a tightly-written piece of material and wanders far afield from time to time. Its pacing feels like it’s taking an occasional hit as well. But the absurdity of it all provides plenty of fun, and stars Kristen Stewart (Meyer’s wife) and the underrated Alia Shawkat are a terrific team together, with genuine warmth, camaraderie, and comedic timing.

Story and Direction

Director Dylan Meyer at the red carpet premiere of ‘The Wrong Girls’. Photo: Eric Charbonneau.

Frankie (Stewart) and Molly (Shawkat) are two aimless best friends who share an apartment, two cats, and that enormous bong somewhere in Los Angeles. Frankie works for a delivery service after dropping out of Stanford, while Molly works on vague spreadsheets and makes highly enhanced brownies. Perpetually late on their rent and perpetually high, the pair thrive on their shared interests (mainly smoking weed) and a kind of slacker chaos that runs through their lives.

Then one night at a club, Frankie is mistaken for a woman named Frances – who looks just like her – by Not Metal Head Dave (LaKeith Stanfield), who tasks Frankie with delivering a mysterious suitcase to someone named Dr. Olsen. Naturally, Frankie and Molly open the suitcase, discover that it contains vials of some kind of drug, and immediately imbibe one each. Seeing visions of giant squids and other phenomena, they discover they can communicate telepathically with each other and their cats (voiced by Seth Rogen and Kumail Nanjiani). Add a hit of weed and they can move objects with their minds as well.

It’s not long before the pair are pursued by three Germanic-looking lads who want the suitcase and its contents, even wrecking the girls’ apartment and all their precious tchotchkes and taking them hostage at one point. A Danish scientist played to perfection by Kate McKinnon (“So who speaks Hollish?” asks Molly at one point, confused about her Scandinavian countries) provides the necessary exposition, leading to a frenetic and increasingly surreal chase in which Molly and Frankie stay just stoned enough to distract themselves from the danger they’re in, even as their friendship begins to fray.

(L to R) Alia Shawkat, director Dylan Meyer and Kristen Stewart at the red carpet premiere of ‘The Wrong Girls’. Photo: Eric Charbonneau.

Although this may sound like a somewhat complicated plot, it’s all a lot shaggier and looser than our description suggests, and the pacing can be quite leisurely as well. Yet Meyer has good visual instincts, especially when things get hazy and hallucinatory for the girls, and the music – a mix of punk, fuzz-guitar psychedelia, surf, and Ty Segall’s score – helps propel the movie from one dizzy set piece to another, including one late, hysterical bit where the girls telekinetically turn their pursuers into a dance troupe.

The movie is very self-aware of its influences, which keeps things clear of any dull, direct homage, and Meyer also lets her stars lead the way with their expert banter and timing. In some ways, Molly and Frankie are a mix of an old hippie couple and Beavis and Butthead, and their antics keep the movie fresh and relatively light on its feet even in its slower moments. The shopworn, under-the-radar L.A. settings give it all an extra texture and background life.

Cast and Performances

(L to R) LaKeith Stanfield and Kate McKinnon star in ‘The Wrong Girls’. Photo: Neon.

Kristen Stewart seems to be on a comedy kick lately, and good for her: after her excellent but intense work in films like ‘Spencer’ and ‘Love Lies Bleeding,’ it’s nice to see her come up for air with something lighter and fizzier.

And she’s quite good at it: we suspect that Frankie hides a fierce intelligence behind her ‘wrong girl’ façade, as well as a healthy self-regard and taste for chaos, making her a walking whirlwind of in-the-moment impulses. She’s matched in every bit by Shawkat as Molly, the more generous and compassionate of the two, but perhaps slightly more baked as well.

Of the supporting cast, LaKeith Stanfield is hilariously deadpan as Dave, while Kate McKinnon steals her handful of minutes in the movie with her usual bizarro flights of fancy. And let’s not forget the unmistakable tones of Rogen and Nunjiani, who voice the two felines as entitled (the former) and whiny (the latter).

Final Thoughts

(L to R) Alia Shawkat and Kristen Stewart at the red carpet premiere of ‘The Wrong Girls’. Photo: Eric Charbonneau.

There are thoughtful, humane messages somewhere in ‘The Wrong Girls’ about finding happiness without the need for success or material wealth, and about the value of true friendships, but they might be a little hard to glimpse through all the smoke.

Yet they’re in there, and add to the charm and fun of Dylan Meyer’s movie. Everyone needs a ‘wrong girl’ in their life, and this far-out comedy gives us two especially madcap ones.

‘The Wrong Girls’ receives a score of 80 out of 100.

‘The Wrong Girls’ opens in theaters on August 14th.

What is the plot of ‘The Wrong Girls’?

Two codependent best friends living paycheck to paycheck and bong rip to bong rip get caught in a case of mistaken identity that throws their lives into chaos.