Dylan Meyer’s directorial debut, The Wrong Girls, arrives with a title that doubles as a warning. Two codependent best friends, living paycheck to paycheck and bong rip to bong rip, stumble into a case of mistaken identity that wrecks their lives. The tagline promises “Best buds. Worst adults.” It is a stoner comedy, a crime story, and a science fiction movie at once, and it is not quite any of them.
Trailer, via NEON.
Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat as Frankie and Molly
Stewart plays Frankie, also called Frances. Shawkat plays Molly. They are the engine of the film, and the film knows it. The premise is simple: mistaken identity throws their lives into chaos. That is the whole of it. The chaos is the point, not the plot that causes it.
Meyer wrote the script as well as directed. That matters. A debut filmmaker working from her own pages gets to keep her own rhythms, and the rhythms here are loose, stoned, and occasionally sharp. The comedy sits in the friendship, not in the crime.
The supporting cast is deep and strange in the right way. LaKeith Stanfield plays a man the credits call Not Metal Head Dave, a name that tells you everything the movie thinks is funny about a name. Zack Fox is Josh. Tony Hale is Martin Flynn. Thomas La Barbera Christensen is Axel. Thor Knai is Dagmar. Thomas Nicholson is Fritz.
Two Cats and a Deep Sea Expert
Then there are the voices. Seth Rogen voices Dio, a cat. Kumail Nanjiani voices GG, a cat. Kate McKinnon plays Dr. Olsen. Geena Davis plays Dr. Chapman. Cate Blanchett plays a Deep Sea Expert. Sugar Lyn Beard plays Mr. Kock. That is a strange name to read in a cast list, and the movie seems to know it.
The film runs 99 minutes. It was released in the United States by Neon on August 14, 2026. The source lists its genres as comedy, crime and science fiction, and the science fiction is the one that earns its keep least. The talking cats are the closest the film comes to the genre, and they are voiced, not explained.
What the film has going for it is its two leads. Stewart and Shawkat play broke adults who have built a whole life out of being broke together. The movie does not ask you to pity them. It asks you to watch them.
Where the Mistaken Identity Goes
The mistaken identity is the hinge, and the film treats it as a hinge. Frankie and Molly get caught in it, and their lives go into chaos. That is what the premise promises, and that is what the movie delivers. It does not overexplain the case. It does not build a conspiracy. It lets the error compound.
Here is what the movie gives you, in order of how much it matters:
- The friendship between Frankie and Molly, which is the only thing the film fully commits to.
- The comedy of two people who are bad at being adults and good at being together.
- The crime plot, which exists to move them around.
- The science fiction, which exists mostly as a label and a pair of talking cats.
That ranking is the review. The film’s priorities are clear, and the crime and sci-fi elements are not among them.
The Cast Around the Edges
The film’s supporting players are doing a specific job. They are texture. Stanfield’s Not Metal Head Dave, Fox’s Josh, Hale’s Martin Flynn — these are people who pass through the story and leave a mark without carrying it.
- Stewart as Frankie, who is also called Frances
- Shawkat as Molly
- Stanfield as Not Metal Head Dave
- Fox as Josh
- Hale as Martin Flynn
- Rogen as the voice of Dio, a cat
- Nanjiani as the voice of GG, a cat
- McKinnon as Dr. Olsen
- Davis as Dr. Chapman
That is a lot of names for a 99-minute movie. It is also the film’s clearest boast. Meyer has assembled a cast that would fit a much bigger production and pointed it at a stoner comedy about two broke friends.
The result is mixed. The film received mixed reviews from critics, and its published critical score sits at 5.9/10, with a Metacritic score of 59/100. That number is fair. It is not a bad movie. It is a movie that cannot decide how much of its own premise it believes in.
What the Movie Gets Right and What It Wastes
The friendship works. Stewart and Shawkat have the kind of rapport that makes two people believable as a unit rather than as two performances. When the film lets them just be in a room, it is funny and a little sad in the way the best stoner comedies are.
The crime plot does not work as well. Mistaken identity is a machine, and machines need precision. This one is loose. The film treats the case as a reason for things to happen rather than as a thing that happens. By the time the chaos peaks, the movie has spent more energy on vibes than on stakes.
The science fiction is the biggest miss. A comedy, crime, science fiction label promises a collision of tones. The Wrong Girls mostly delivers comedy and crime, with the science fiction reduced to two talking cats and a title card’s worth of genre. Rogen and Nanjiani are funny as Dio and GG. They are also the entire sci-fi budget.
The casting of Blanchett as a Deep Sea Expert is the kind of joke that only lands if the movie around it is confident. Here it reads as a gag the film is not sure it has earned. It is a good gag. It just floats.
The Wrong Girls is a debut that announces a filmmaker with taste and a voice, and then does not quite trust either. Meyer can write a friendship. She can cast a movie. What she has not yet done is decide what her movie is about beyond its two leads.
The 99 minutes go down easily. The tagline is accurate. Best buds, worst adults, and a plot that never quite becomes the point. That is not a failure of ambition. It is a failure of focus.
The film is at its best when it forgets the case and remembers the two women at its center. It is at its worst when it remembers the case and forgets them. A stoner comedy can survive a thin plot. It cannot survive losing interest in its own leads.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
