The Wrong Girls (2026) Review: A Sci-Fi Crime Caper

The premise is lean: Frankie and Molly are broke, bored, and blissfully incurious. They work the counter at a vape shop, steal Wi-Fi from a neighbor, and mock the world from the safety of their crumbling apartment. Their routine shatters when a drone delivery drops off a package meant for “Not Metal Head Dave” (a scene-stealing LaKeith Stanfield, who shows up late and owns every second). Inside: a suitcase of glowing vials and a burner phone that won’t stop buzzing. The real Dave, it turns out, is a freelance memory broker for a shadowy firm called MnemoSys, run by the fastidious Martin Flynn (Hale). When Frankie answers the phone and impersonates the intended recipient, she and Molly are swept into a job: retrieve a stolen neural drive from a rival crew. Their only asset is a half-baked plan, a taser that’s always dead, and a willingness to say “yes” to anything that isn’t rent.

What follows is a series of escalating screw-ups: a botched handoff in a Koreatown karaoke bar, a chase through a neon-lit laundromat, and a confrontation with two actual assassins who look like they stepped out of a John Wick B-roll. The script, credited to Meyer and a pair of writers, keeps the tone breezy even when the body count rises - though, mercifully, no one important dies. The sci-fi element - implanted memories that let you relive someone else’s life - is barely explored beyond a few trippy sequences where Molly sees herself as a ballet dancer and Frankie relives a carjacking. It’s less about the technology and more about how these two use it to avoid confronting their own stagnation.

The film lives or dies on its central pairing, and Stewart and Shawkat are aces. Stewart, playing double duty as Frankie and her imagined “competent” alter ego Frances - a fantasy of herself with a job and a skincare routine - does her best work in the quieter moments, like when she watches Molly sleep and her face crinkles with unspoken terror at the thought of being alone. Shawkat matches her beat for beat, giving Molly a goofy, golden-retriever energy that never tips into pathetic. Their banter is loose, overlapping, and feels improvised in the best way - the kind of friendship where insults are love language.

But the movie’s biggest problem is its own shrug of an ambition. Meyer, who co-wrote the script with a clear affection for stoners-with-heart comedies, seems allergic to stakes. Every chase scene cuts away right before tension peaks; every threat is defused by a dumb joke. Zack Fox, as Josh, a fast-food manager who inexplicably knows the criminal underworld, functions as a deus ex machina with a mullet - funny, but lazy. Chris Estrada’s Jose, a frustrated MnemoSys middle-manager, gets one great rant about corporate synergy and then disappears.

The visuals are a mixed bag. Cinematographer Carolina Costa bathes the frame in honeyed afternoon light, making even a dumpster alley look like a vacation postcard. But the action choreography is floppy, and the sci-fi lab set looks like a start-up office that bought its wall art at IKEA. The film’s best sequence - a 10-minute stretch where Frankie and Molly break into Flynn’s penthouse using only a stolen keycard, a drone, and their combined knowledge of Ocean’s Eleven - plays like a warm, low-stakes hangout with a heist soundtrack. It’s the movie at its most confident: two people who know each other too well, failing upward.

Pros

• Stewart and Shawkat’s chemistry is effortless and genuinely moving
• Zack Fox and Tony Hale steal every scene they’re in
• The dialogue has a conversational, stoned-logic wit
• A refreshingly unhurried pace for a genre usually obsessed with urgency
• The central friendship feels real, not written

Cons

• The plot is a loose bag of excuses for set pieces
• Sci-fi elements are undercooked and inconsistent
• Comic relief characters overly dry up the second half
• Action sequences are flaccid and poorly edited
• A third-act twist involving Frankie’s “perfect” doppelganger lands with a shrug

The Wrong Girls is a shaggy, uneven charmer that mistakes its own comfort food qualities for depth. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a warm, slightly stale bagel: pleasant in the moment, but you’ll be hungry again in an hour. Meyer clearly loves these characters, and that affection is contagious - you root for Frankie and Molly even when they’re making idiotic choices. But a great hangout doesn’t excuse a limp story engine. With a tighter script and a stronger grasp of its own rules, this could’ve been a cult classic. As it stands, it’s a pleasant detour, a movie that’s happy to sit on the couch with you rather than demand your full attention. If you’re in the mood for two pros doing heavy lifting, it’s worth a rental. Just don’t expect the memes to write themselves. Rated 5.9/10 by the public, and honestly, that feels about right: not wrong, but not right enough.