Connie and Carla Review
by Karina Montgomery (karina AT cinerina DOT com)May 18th, 2004
Connie & Carla
Matinee
This rating is completely dependnd on your love of musical drag cabaret. If you find meticulously staged, passionately sung anthems about love, beauty, truth, and joy to be tiresome, then don't drop a dime on this film. Connie and Carla is wall to wall song - even when it's ot a musical number, it's the ringing peals of two gifted comic actresses riffing their characters off each other. Even the scenes that would be better classified as ballads shimmer with a happy-ending foreshadowing positivity. There's hardly a surprise to be found in this tale of two ladies evading potential killers by posing as drag queens who do exactly the same show they did as women. Their implied stag status brings them more success than they ever dreamed of as themselves.
"Hey," you might say. "That sounds like a poor message to send to aspiring show people and closeted unique people all around." Au contraire, Connie and Carla is a shining beacon for acceptance of self, acceptance of others, and finding your bliss. If you are the kind of person who can really appreciate Kander and Ebb's "Maybe This Time," then you can't escape a screening of this without a huge grin. And what better way to spend your hard earned pre-summer season dollar but on a positive, upbeat show like this?
The story leaps into the plot neatly and well after minimal exposition. It's as predictable as a sunset in the flatlands, but Connie & Carla is still as pleasurable as a favorite record. Tibor the antagonist is handled in a way only musical theatre could balance - a threat, but not a downer. His subplot is filled with simple delight. David Duchovny shows up as a plot element more than anything else. His sweet approachable character made me want to rewatch Return to Me more than anything else. (This is always a good idea, just for the record.)
Toni Collette and Nia Vardalos are the perfect ladies for the part. Not Los Angeles scrawny, they take their Midwestern bodies and celebrate them like no Hollywood movie would. And their drag makeup is so brilliant that it's hypnotic (Why do drag queens insist on always designing their makeup against their faces instead of with them?) Their chemistry together feels like lifelong friends, and we have to believe their love for each other will carry them through these outrageous adventures. The girls make no attempt to sound male, and their disguises are as effective as Clark Kent's glasses, but you don't care. Like the best moments of the musicals they sample, Connie and Carla relies heavily on your willing suspension of disbelief. But if you're willing, they are ready to entertain you.
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These reviews (c) 2004 Karina Montgomery. Please feel free to forward but credit the reviewer in the text. Thanks. You can check out previous reviews at:
http://www.cinerina.com and http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com - the Online Film Critics Society http://www.hsbr.net/reviews/karina/listing.hsbr - Hollywood Stock Exchange Brokerage Resource
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
