‘Cora Bora’ Review – A Star Vehicle For Meg Stalter, And Nothing More

Everyone has a Cora (Meg Stalter) in their life. She’s someone you cautiously consider a friend, but when you’re asked to recount how your relationship came to be, all that comes to mind is her sudden daily appearance in your life, whether you want her there or not. She didn’t become a companion so much as she assumed the role of one. She calls herself a musician, never mind that she’s one false note away from being tone-deaf and just barely gets by on the guitar. When you tell her that you have exciting news, she assumes it must have something to do with her. She’s selfish, narcissistic, rude, and possessive. Yet you tend to excuse her behavior, and remain willing to be there for her despite her inability to ever really be there for you, because she’s been through a lot in life. She’s the worst. But if she wasn’t the worst, she’d probably be the best.

Family, friends, and fellow Earth dwellers are all subject to this treatment and overall dilemma in Cora Bora, the cringe-dramedy from Hannah Pearl Utt that desperately wants to disguise itself as a coming-of-age film for artists in their early 30s who need to feel seen. If you haven’t guessed by now, the film follows Cora, a bisexual musician who, even having urged her girlfriend to make their relationship an open one, finds herself overwhelmed by the idea that Justine (JoJo T. Gibbs) has adhered to her wishes and has started to see someone else. This angst sends Cora back to Portland, where she grew up and lived with Justine, not necessarily to regain control of this other life, but to re-mark her territory, as with time, the scent she left behind has worn off.

In Cora’s mind, it’s not her fault that she has been sleeping with other people all along, even before she suggested that they loosen their relationship’s regulations. That she has been living in Los Angeles to pursue a fledgling career as a singer-songwriter while her partner and their dog, Taco, remained in Portland is also not something she feels she should take responsibility for. The pitfalls of being a struggling artist who believes that her coffee shop performances for a begrudging audience of four customers desperate to tune her out will nab her a record deal, these are. It’s only fitting that one of Cora’s songs is called “Dreams Are Stupid,” and that the lyrics assert, “and so are you for believing in them.” If only Cora could recognize that she’s singing more about herself than those she’s forcing her views upon.

Stalter, known for her own Eric Andre-esque YouTube series and her breakout role on the Max hit, Hacks, is given plenty of room here, not for error so much as for what feels like a unique blend of uber-instinctual improvisation and a scripted-yet-personal comedic touch, emphasis on personal. And though her performance is what fuels Cora Bora from start to finish, the film’s strongest asset might be its litany of cameo-adjacent appearances from strong performers like Margaret Cho, Darrell Hammond, Thomas Mann and Chelsea Peretti.

The best turns belong to Ayden Mayeri – playing the other woman in Cora and Justine’s complicated romance – and Manny Jacinto, playing a distinguished man called Tom whose first-class seat Cora attempts to steal on her flight back to Portland. Jacinto is subdued and kind, a harsh departure from his most recent work as the sexy Jedi-slaughtering Qimir in The Acolyte, Disney+’s latest Star Wars offering. The shame here, especially if you find Cora’s sort of annoyance to be too off-putting for comfort, is that you spend much of Cora Bora wanting Mayeri and Jacinto to have a film of their own, regardless of the fact that they share no screen time.

When a traumatic narrative thread as out-of-place as Cora’s presence in Hollywood arrives in the final act, doing its best to give the titular character an emotional depth that nothing about her would otherwise warrant, Rhianon Jones’s script jerks itself away from high-brow subtlety – overused in comedy nowadays despite its relative success here – into a lesser territory, that of the redemption arc that movies about characters like Cora tend to force themselves to apply in an effort to win back an audience they’ve already lost. Cora Bora barely gets by with its initial tone; by opting to rejigger its motivation and focus in the home stretch, it undoes the little good will it had built up with its specific brand of humor. 

Cora Bora is currently playing in select theaters courtesy of Brainstorm Media.