Straining as hard as it can to display “Indie Cred,” this film goes from annoying to not too bad, but you’ll have to wait to get there.
Cora (Megan Stalter) is a struggling musician who has come to L.A. to give it a go. She half-heartedly strums a few chords while “singing” stream-of-consciousness lyrics that are too cute by half (I mean from the screenwriter, not the fictional character). She’s basically a one-woman train wreck wherever she goes.
In a long-distance relationship with her girlfriend, whom she left behind in Portland (get it? Hipsterland? Indie-Cred?) Cora decides to fly back, suspicious that, even though they’re in an open relationship, her girlfriend may have found love with another.
If we haven’t already found this character shrill enough, her plane ride back home starts with her taking someone’s seat and refusing to move, just like the crazy people on YouTube. Not really too funny.
Back in Portland, she is made, finally, aware that she needs more work than just a refreshing of her love life. Can she redeem herself? Do the well-acted other characters get more than a bracing pass without letting them into the story a bit more? I’ll never tell.
Meg Stalter is something of a cult hero to the Gen Z set, having scored with YouTube videos showing her onstage comedy routine (spoiler alert: it’s like her musical performances in this movie).
She’s also beloved, as is co-star Manny Jacinto, within part of the LGBTQ+ community. Among those specific demographics, the response was rapturous when the film played the festivals.
Maybe I’m Just the Wrong Demographic (not hip, not pretty, not young) For This?
Ah, but the tone takes a marked change halfway through and the character becomes more relatable, more multi-dimensional. The change gives doubters a wake-up call to Stalter’s versatility as an actor. It’s like the movie saying to us, “See, she had a reason for being such an obvious disaster.”
Also, I have to give props to the film, on some level, for being brave enough to put at the center of its film a character who is so confident, or pretends to be, in the face of all reason not to be.
So, that makes Cora Bora the very definition of a mixed bag for me; though I am fully aware that Meg Stalter has every chance of going from cult hero to mainstream success in the near future.
Cora Bora is Rated R and available to stream from July 12th
