Dr. Michael Lembeck. Star. Nia Vardalos, David Duchovny, Connie and Carla
When a films’ hit-line is “when you follow your dream, there's no telling what you'll become”, you have every reason to be somewhat worried, especially when its women doing the dreaming and ending up dressing up as men pretending to be women. Well, you may not be worried, but I certainly was.
The plot is simple and somewhat too familiar. Two girls, witness to some cocaine-fuelled gang violence, figure that their best disguise would be as performers in a Los Angeles theatre. Please, don’t ask me why. After a few unsuccessful attempts at jobs where their style wasn‘t quite accepted, like a hairdressing boutique, they wander into a drag queen club called the Handlebar to get drunk and forget their sorrows. While there, they overhear that the owner of the club is holding auditions for new stage talent. Realising that he is only looking for cross-dressing men, they dress up like drag queens and so begins this uninspiring and dull film. As you can imagine, the girls (who are men, who are girls… sounds like Shakespeare) are an instant success and this leads to a more trouble and difficulty than either of them can actually cope with.
Familiar? Absolutely. It’s a rehash of ‘Some Like It Hot’, that wonderfully endearing classic from the late 1950s. That was bad enough for me, but to find that it contained almost nothing but meticulously staged, passionately sung anthems about love, beauty and truth, I almost walked out of the cinema and killed myself. It seemed to me that the film lacked any meaning or message. Not that this is an essential aspect to any film, but I do like to come out of the cinema with something to think about over my post-film pint. This film, however, gave me none of that, instead it simply covered up for this lack with pointless singing and fake emotion. Which was a shame.
Don’t let me put you off, however. The film does have some things going for it, if you like dressing up as a women. The acting is authentic and realistic, though only as much as it possibly can be in the surreal setting of this film. The two leads, Collette and Vardalos, work better together in this film than they did when they were apart, and the stage chemistry between them is perhaps the greatest element in this film. Their exceptional drag queen acting is enough to make other drag queens jealous. Add this to the novelty of seeing David Duchovny out of his X-Files role, and the film can raise a few murmurs in the cinema.
For me, the film was generally uninspiring and seemed to drag on for far longer than the quality of this mediocre offering seemed to merit. Other viewers, however, found it far to short and decided that it was less of a film and more of just a brief insight or passing glance. See what you think, you will probably disagree with me.
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