In 1997 Robin Schiff adapted two of her most successful characters from her play The Ladies Room into their own mad-cap road trip absurdist comedy, those characters were Romy and Michelle, described in their plot synopsis as “two dim-witted, inseparable friends”. To fill the roles, Mira Sorvino (hot off her astounding academy award winning performance in Woody Allen’s marvellous Mighty Aphrodite) and Lisa Kudrow (reprising her role from the play and riding the immeasurable success of Friends at the time) were chosen, and not to be too over dramatic; filmic history was made. Or at least buddy comedy film history was made. 

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The combination of elements really shouldn’t work all being said; the script is a bizarre combination of extended comedy dream sequences and pairings of dry wit and meta humour, the film however makes its own rhythm and is all the better for it. There really is no other film like Romy and Michelle, whereas with other comedies you can sort of make a straight line to its influences, however this film is such an amalgamation of different forces and genres that it makes its melting pot a sensational feast for everybody who watches it. The film is directed by David Mirkin who brings the script to screen with great visual flare and I think it’s a real shame that he hasn’t really gone on to do much else of great success on film. Much the same can be said for Schiff too, who never really made another successful film again. Both of which work mainly in TV nowadays which feels like the wasteland for talented 90’s talent who made cult films that everybody loves now, but didn’t at the time. Perhaps part of the talent is the “Lightening in the bottle factor”, as for me if you remove one element from this film then it may very well all come crumbling down.

The excellence and success of this film is mainly down to two singular people; Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow. The pair of them so perfectly play off each other and become rather immediately one of the best on-screen duo’s of all time. The two are funny as all hell and perfectly encapsulate the beauty of a long-standing friendship, simultaneously playing the two characters as relentlessly smart whilst also being perennially dumb. It’s one of the finest comedic tight-ropes I’ve seen walked in some time. It reminds me in many ways of Reece Witherspoon’s immensely difficult job with the character of Elle Woods of Legally Blonde. All three characters could so easily be desperately annoying and we could lose interest in viewing them immediately, but the craft and warmth of the actors lends them to being people we long to spend more and more time. Crafting the moments of possible annoyance with such precision that it would defy and be just too much for any handful of comedic performers. The film also features the possible peak of Kudrow’s career, with the sensationally funny and wickedly smart, completely improvised “glue” monologue, utilising her biology degree from Vassar college. We often forget how bloody smart Kudrow is, as a performer and as a scientist too. Sorvino too, has great educational pedigree, with a degree in Asian studies from Harvard. This all led to the onset nicknames the two had for one another, calling each other “Smart” and “Smarter”. The supporting cast add to the film’s lustre also, with Alan Cumming being sparingly used and maximising three wholly different embodiments of the same character, beginning as a squeamish high school nerd with a terribly crippling crush, then to a dream state version of the character with a hilariously ridiculous amount of makeup upon him, before a semi-realistic version of the millionaire adult of that same nerd kid. It’s no Emcee, but it’s another shining example of the array of Cumming’s talents. Janeane Garofalo is also delightfully funny as the exact opposite of her Wet Hot American Summer character, here there is no warmth and she is all the funnier for it.

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The film is fundamentally a hybrid of 80’s nostalgia before that concept infected every brand of media that we have, whilst also being a perennially 90’s flick. There’s even multiple references to Sorvino’s then boyfriend, the most 90’s director of all time (and just one of the best ever) Quentin Tarantino, with a large billboard for “Red apple cigarettes” and a takeout bag for “Big Kahuna burger” (the fictional brands from Tarantino’s movie universe). This melting pot of 80’s and 90’s niche chic serves the soundtrack very well with lots of great choices, and never just for the sake of it either – the true mark of any good soundtrack. Every song choice adds to the scene it’s being played in and enriches the atmosphere. The peak of this is the return of Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time at the actual reunion, as it accompanies a beautiful and brilliantly half-assed (yet somehow also wholly committed) performance of an impossibly impromptu, unbelievably not choreographed free-wheeling interpretive dance, with Alan Cumming as their third partner and the union between the two of them. The sequence epitomises the class and humour of the film, and ultimately the tone, the dance is dry and fully committed as anything you’d see in any other musical of the time, whilst at the heart of it, the piece is very much an absurd satirical take on the sort of inexplicably choreographed final numbers of these sorts of high school (non-musical, but very much musical) films. The underlying commentary of the film is an in-depth and disparaging dissection of the exact sort of nostalgic film that was populating the movie theatres at the time, none of which were half as smart, funny or warm as Romy and Michelle, which spends half of its time mocking the genre.

Ultimately Romy and Michelle is an ever rewatchable comedy and endlessly quotable and is something I highly recommend to anyone who hasn’t seen or heard of it before. Despite it’s bizarre structure and long stretches of absurd sequences that really don’t add to the plot, but add to the film to no end in its delivery of seminal 90’s humour and timeless heart and wit. Schiff’s script, delivered by Kudrow and Sorvino, and directed by Mirkin is a baffling combination of talents that makes a firm cult favourite forevermore. Get it watched and then fold some scarves.

-        -   Thomas Carruthers

P.S. Any film that mocks the highly overrated Pretty Woman is more than worthy in my book. God I’ve never liked that film.