Cora Bora is an entertaining, highly watchable new film with a breakout starring role for Megan Stalter, who is primarily known for her hilarious portrayal of Kayla in Max’s “Hacks” series. While she kills it as Kayla, this film gives her a chance to show her range as an actress, and she runs with it. She brings a raw realness to her character Cora, whose already chaotic life seems set on crash and burn. Her career as a singer/songwriter/musician has come undone since losing her band, and she struggles to rekindle it as a solo act in tiny clubs and spaces across L.A. Meanwhile, her long-distance “open relationship” with her lover Justine is crumbling, too, and she returns for a bit to Portland, where she finds Justine in content domesticity with a new woman.
For Cora Bora, director Hannah Pearl Utt teams up with writer Rhianon Jones (Shiva Baby), who started a production company to support female filmmakers. With her first production, she saved the wonderful “Circus of Books” from the proverbial cutting room floor, and it went on to premiere at Tribeca and get purchased by Ryan Murphy. This young female crew feels like California’s answer to the incomparable Phoebe Waller Bridge and represents the new and casual queerness and lack of body shaming that bodes well for the future. It was exciting to see a full-bodied woman appearing not just as the funny sidekick, but as the beautiful and sexy lead.
Dragging herself, her guitar, and her little dog Taco (who Stalter describes as “a horrible actor”), Cora has her share of romps with men, including the handsome and sweet Tom, whose friends say he’s “drawn to broken people.” She sings songs with lyrics like, “Dreams are stupid and so are you for believing in them” to inattentive audiences, gets high with strangers, and generally screws up so much that we are mystified by her behavior until we learn what is behind her unraveling. Truly tragic and traumatizing events have brought her to this place, and we wish Cora successful healing, and her portrayer, Megan, a fantastic career.
PS Janet Prolman reviewed Cora Bora at Provincetown International Film Festival
and it will screen next at Outfest in LA
Review: Janet ProlmanJanet Prolman was born in Boston, Massachusetts, where her mother nicknamed her “my little queer.” She has also lived in North Carolina and New York. A lover of short stories, theater, music, and performance, she knows the lyrics to almost every song or advertising jingle she’s ever heard. Now on Cape Cod, she enjoys kayaking and frequenting Provincetown.
Labels: 2023, Cora Bora, Hannah Pearl Utt, Janet Prolman, Megan Stalter, review, Rhianon Jones
