Connie and Carla - 2004

Directed by Michael Lembeck

Starring Nia Vardalos, Toni Collette and David Duchovny with Special Guest Star Debbie Reynolds. Written by Nia Vardalos.

On The Shelves Rating: Two bottles of chilled bubbly and two popped corks.

Connie and Carla is brought to you (with joy I suspect) by the same woman who wrote and starred in My Big Fat Greek Wedding (02).  You’re gonna laugh out loud again. In fact, there was more laughter, cheering, hooting and clapping in that theatre than I can ever remember. I can assure you that I was rolling on the floor with the rest of them.

I love a running gag when it’s done well and Vardalos has a knack for them. Remember the WindexTM in MBFGW? Nia Vardalos has a lovely sense of the absurd and knows how to use it. There’s a certain amount of Woody Allen in her writing I think. The snapshot of hilarity in the simple business of, for instance —cooking dinner: Annie Hall (77) and the lobsters—it’s almost thrown away and you forget about it until it bites you in the ass later in the story. Same thing with the WindexTM. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Tough! Go rent the movies if you missed them in the theatres.

Two girls with greasepaint dreams are working in the small time and see something they shouldn’t. And they were seen seeing it—which is even worse—so they beat feet out of town at top speed and end up in West Hollywood. The concept of C&C is Victor/Victoria (82) squared. Here we have two women pretending to be men pretending to be women. And a fine job they do of it too.

My hat’s off to David Duchovny (he’s his usual sexy ol’ self in this film) who presents what I think could go down in history as the funniest reaction to an unwanted kiss ever seen on screen.  He’s the reason the second cork got popped when I rated this one. Oh God, I’m still laughing over it and I swear, not even Cary Grant could have made a face like that.

Debbie Reynolds (as herself) tops off the film like a cherry on a banana split—how can she help doing otherwise, I ask ya’—and I loved every minute of it. Thanks girls!

—Jessie Lilley

Originally published at the now defunct www.ontheshelves.com