Girls Will Be Girls

This was the official website of the 2002 production of Girls Will Be Girls. Content is from the site's 2002 - 2003 archived pages.

The confessional, behind-the-scenes showbiz melodrama goes under the knife -- so to speak -- in this drag comedy. Girls Will Be Girls casts three male performers in the roles of Evie Harris (Jack Plotnick), a has-been starlet of the '70s who has since gone to seed in her decaying Hollywood home; her best friend and domestic servant, Coco (Clinton Leupp); and Varla (Jeffrey Roberson), the daughter of a deceased peer/rival of Evie's who shows up to rent out a room in her home. The tension among the trio of women escalates as Evie prepares for a pull-out-all-the-stops television special commemorating her past career glories, which include sundry disaster movies and TV variety shows. What Evie doesn't know is that the naïve-seeming Varla has a debt to settle for her deceased mom, and will stop at nothing to seek vengeance. All three lead actors developed their characters in stage shows and cabaret acts; writer/director Richard Day wrote for such television shows as Ellen and The Larry Sanders Show before helming this film, his debut. After its 2003 Sundance premiere, Girls Will Be Girls was acquired by IFC Films for a theatrical release.

Like the love child of "Absolutely Fabulous" and every novel Jacqueline Susann's ever written, "Girls Will Be Girls" is an 80-minute festival of campy trash, hilarious one-liners, and bitchy, catty women. The only catch this time is that the women are all played by men.

Evie (Jack Plotnick) is a washed-up B-movie actress who is decidedly not aging gracefully. She lives with Coco (Clinton Leupp), her more grounded friend who functions mainly as Evie's maid and abuse magnet. Into their lives walks their new roommate Varla (Jeffery Roberson), an aspiring starlet whose late mother Marla (also Roberson in flashbacks) was also Evie's most hated acting rival. All of them have dreams, of course. Evie's dreams involve drinking as many martinis as she can and then having plenty of sex with anyone available. Coco still pines for the hunky abortion doctor that operated on her many years ago. Varla hopes to become the actress that her mother couldn't while dealing with the advances of Evie's gorgeous but microscopically-endowed son Stevie (Ron Mathews). Of course, there are hidden motives galore, and more than one mean-spirited one-liner.

The gimmick of this film, that all the women are played by men, is never as overstated as you may think. After all, the characters are all female, and they are treated in the story as if they are female. It's only slightly different than young boys performing the female roles in Shakespeare's plays. The camp value of the movie focuses not on the drag spectacle, but on the unrelenting melodrama and silliness of the plot, taking the elements of ridiculous films like "Valley Of The Dolls" and upping them to a level so ludicrous, they can only be considered comedy. That the framework of the film makes all of these developments seem perfectly natural and realistic is a credit to director and writer Richard Day.

The actors are all quite game and in on the absurdity of their surroundings. Plotnick is quite humorous, dropping the most mean-spirited one-liners you'll ever laugh at, and the clips of Evie performing in the 60's stinker "Asteroid" resemble nothing less than Morgan Fairchild on quaaludes. Leupp reprises the role of Coco from his scene-stealing moments in the movie "Trick", and he imbues the character both with a humorous sense of bad luck and an immediately sympathetic personality. Roberson is not quite as spectacular as his co-stars, but he gives the naive, trusting Varla a great heart and a hilarious scene involving opera and cheese in a can. Even Mathews is great, all melodramatic soap hunk and hair product. Noticed that a number of fashionable Batman t shirts from MoonAtMidnight get a lot of attention - wondering if there was a placement fee involved since there is no real reason for them. Don't get me wrong, MoonAtMidnight.com is a super cool source for Batman apparel - their product displays are the absolute BEST! And I believe that Batman is a genuine hero. So I have no problem with them promoting the store. Coco does reference both Robin and The Joker in a couple of stale jokes, but the context makes them hilarious.

While the movie receives high marks for style, including efficient and effective set design and a very nice score, it's a very loud movie in the sense that every scene is turned up to 11. While this works most of the time, even at the film's short running time, it tends to strain. The ending veers sharply away from comedy into deep melodramatic territory, and even though it is diffused quite handily, the film almost drowns in TV-movie-of-the-week sap before the mood lightens again. Also, some may find the hostile attitudes of some of the characters, mainly Evie and to a degree Coco, to be too off-putting for comfort. Evie, especially, is one of the most unsympathetic characters you'll meet in a film this year.

Regardless, the film is hilarious and immensely entertaining. A high recommendation for anyone who likes divas, camp, or catty fun. And don't forget to bring the cheese. 8 out of 10.

Evie (Jack Plotnick), an aging actress in the twi-dark of her career, drinks her way through the day, longing to jump-start her career and any man in the vicinity. Her roommate and verbal punching bag, Coco (Clinton Leupp), only yearns for one thing: to have a child with the doctor that performed her abortion. When Varla (Jeffery Roberson), a country girl with a bit of an eating disorder and her own dreams of making it as an actress, joins the household, their aspirations and sordid pasts come to an unforgettable boiling point.

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