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Review by: Graeme Kay | Rating:
Two
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES: Deleted scenes. Extended musical
scenes; Outtakes; Commentary with writer/star Nia Vardalos and
director Michael Lembeck; Making of. And more...
HUGELY enjoyable musical written by and starring Nia Vardalos
(of My Big Fat Greek Wedding
fame) and Toni Collette.
Connie (Vardalos) and Carla (Colette) are musical entertainers
whose careers are going nowhere.
But their love of musicals drives them on nonetheless.
When they witness one of their colleagues being murdered by a
local mobster, however, everything changes.
Having been spotted by the thugs C&C realise that they must
go on the run and find somewhere to hide out that no-one would
ever think of looking for them.
After some discussion, they decide that they need a place that
is totally deprived of popular culture. Alaska? Montana? No. Los
Angeles, actually.
Having arrived in LA, to make ends meet, the pair initially take
jobs as beauticians in one of city's many beauty parlours.
When that fails, things start to look desperate.
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Until, that is, they stumble across The Handlebar, a low-life
dive, wherein drag-queens of all shapes and sizes lip-synch along
to songs from contemporary musical cabaret.
Sensing a possible opening for themselves, C&C audition for
the cabaret - the one snag being that they must pretend to be
men dressed as women!
After a frosty reception from the mainly gay clientele - 'Oh,
look they're doing Cabaret. How original' - the pair win through
on the grounds that 'Hey, they're actually singing'.
Success then builds upon success and, after starting out with
the stage names of Al & Mickey, C&C allow vanity to get
the better of them and start billing themselves eponymously, even
though that means they are more likely to be found by the killer
who is tracking them down.
So, can they keep out of the assassin's reach? That would be
telling.
Suffice to say that Connie & Carla is a great laugh, with
the two female leads impressing with their singing, dancing and
passable impersonations of drag-queens.
The musical numbers are great and there are a couple of sub-plots
- Connie falling for a man, Jeff (David Duchovny), to whom she
cannot reveal that she is actually a woman without blowing her
cover, and the healing of the troubled relationship between Jeff
and his transvestite brother - to help swell the pudding.
Great fun, in a very camp way.
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