"Where Movie Critics Get A Taste Of Their Own Medicine"
Subscribe To Weekly Newsletter!

CONNIE AND CARLA
by Peter Sobczynski

April 16, 2004

(out of 4 stars)

FILM CREDITS: Written by Nia Vardalos. Directed by Michael Lembeck. Starring Nia Vardalos, Toni Collette, David Duchovny, Stephen Spinella and Ian Gomez

Although I was not a fan of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", the surprise smash hit that made an improbable star out of actress/writer Nia Vardalos, I will grudgingly concede that the screenplay did have a certain amount of heart and sincerity to it (though buried under a ton of predictable sitcom contrivances) and those are the elements that audiences responded to that made it so popular. Those element, however, are completely missing from her latest film, "Connie and Carla". This is a film without an single authentic bone in its body-it is a shoddy pastiche of dumb jokes and horrible overacting lashed together with a storyline cribbed entirely from other, better films. Even those who succumbed to the charms of "Greek Wedding" are liable to be left cold by this hard-sell enterprise and wonder how the same person could be responsible for both films.

Actually, I suspect that Vardalos may have penned this script long before working on "Greek Wedding", perhaps as an exercise in screenwriting that was never meant to see the light of day. However, once she became the next big thing in Hollywood, I presume that she was inundated with offers for her next project and, choosing to strike while the iron was hot, decided to dust it off and sell it for a lot of money. I can’t argue with her business sense-hey, if I could make a ton of money by rehashing old stuff, I’d do it in a heartbeat-but the problem is that the film still feels like it was written by a novice; instead of anything fresh, the script is a collection of dumb jokes, one-note characters and a storyline so obviously comprised of elements "borrowed" from other, better films that it is a shock that there hasn’t yet been a plagiarism lawsuit filed.

The film stars Vardalos and Toni Collette as Connie and Carla, a pair of lifelong friends from Chicago with dreams of making it big as dinner-theater singers, though their careers seem to have peaked as singers in an airport lounge that, based on the background noise, seems to be located right next to the runways. One night, after a gig, they inadvertently witness their boss being gunned down by evil bad guys (led by Robert James Burke) and are spotted while trying to flee. Frightened for their lives, they skip town and decide to hide out in Los Angeles and somehow manage to pick up jobs singing in a local club. The joke, however, is that it is a drag club and Connie and Carla have to pose as female impersonators-all they do is slap on a little more makeup and soon their act (consisting entirely of old show tunes) becomes the toast of the city. Complications arise when Connie falls for Jeff (David Duchovny), the brother of one of her drag friends; of course, he thinks that she is really a he posing as a she...

Does any of this sound familiar? Well, the idea of a woman posing as a man posing as a woman (and causing a straight man to fall for him/her) is right out of "Victor/Victoria", but the basic premise of a duo evading Chicago gangsters by dressing in drag and posing as musicians is, of course, the exact same plot of "Some Like It Hot", one of the greatest comedies ever made. Even though there are plenty of films around today that owe their "inspiration" to other films, the sheer blatantness of the cribbing on display here is a little bit shocking; I have seen actual remakes of films that weren’t as close to the original source material as this one is.

Of course, if I were Billy Wilder, I don’t know if I’d be more upset over the theft of the plot or by the fact that so little is done with it. Instead of trying to come up with any fresh observations, "Connie and Carla" feels like a film caught in a time warp-it actually thinks that the basic idea of men in drag is inherently hilarious. Although it preaches tolerances for one and all, the genuine drag queens are portrayed as a group of mincing goofs who have nothing more to do in their lives than obsess over makeup and show tunes. (The view of the gay lifestyle shown in this film is slightly less nuanced than the one on display in "Cruising"-and at least that didn’t have people squealing with delight over people singing "Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina") Actually, all of the jokes in the film have a curiously dated feel-there is a spilled-cocaine joke straight out of "Annie Hall", Vardalos and Duchovny begin nearly every single scene together by smashing into each other and director Michael Lembeck even stoops to scoring a traveling montage with, you guessed it, "Born to Be Wild", a joke that has been used in approximately 752 films since the release of "Easy Rider" and has been funny approximately once (in "Lost in America").

Like the screenplay, the performances are similarly one-note and schticky. Forced to play a character instead of a thinly-disguised version of herself, Vardalos reveals herself to be a pretty bad actress-one of those who assumes that the louder you are, the funnier you become-and Collette is just as strident and unappealing as her sidekick. (Neither one, by the way, is even vaguely convincing as a drag queen; frankly, they look more like men in the scenes where they are supposed to look like women.) All of the fellow drag queens have been directed to camp it up as much as possible, as though they are auditioning for a revival of "The Boys in the Band". The only actor who comes close to delivering a decent performance is Duchovny, whose low-key nature is a blessed relief to all the other nonsense; unfortunately, he gets saddled with a couple of dreary subplots that saddle him with a long-lost brother and a bitchy fiancee who dismisses all the drag queens as freaks.

What is frustrating is that there are places in "Connie and Carla" where the story could have spun off in different directions in order to make it seem a little fresher. Why not have Duchovny as one of the gangster’s hired killers who doesn’t realize that he is falling for his target? Why not have the fiancee be completely fine with the drag-queen brother, making her into more of a person than a convenient plot device? Why not cut down on the endless montages of show-tune performances, which a.) are not particularly funny, b.) are not particularly tuneful and c.) serve no other purpose than to outrageously pad out a slim storyline to feature length. These changes probably wouldn’t have helped much in the long run but they might have made it seem more like a real film and not just a cheap cash-in rip-off that will do nothing but foster the idea that Vardalos is nothing more than a one-hit wonder.
.

-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI

Copyright © 2004 Peter Sobczynski
All rights reserved.
Used with permission
Peter's Archives

While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.