CORA BORA - Mark Reviews Movies

Cora Bora, Brainstorm Media

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 13, 2024

Messy characters can be good for comedy, because they have a tendency to, well, get into plenty of messes. Cora (Megan Stalter) is such a character—selfish and self-centered (which are slightly different ways of behaving), cynical and judgmental, generally uncaring about the feelings of others and so miserable that it almost seems as if she's acting to make herself feel that way.

The comedic potential is here in writer Rhianon Jones and director Hannah Pearl Utt's Cora Bora, which follows Cora from Los Angeles to Portland as she makes things worse for herself and anyone within her sphere. At first, the material is unapologetic about this character, which lets us laugh with her on the few occasions when she's almost accidentally right and at her on the many others when she's not. Like a lot of stories about a mostly unsympathetic character like Cora, though, this one doesn't have the courage to simply let her be who she is and find the comedy in that.

No, something terrible happened to Cora that presumably explains why she is this way. Jones keeps it a secret until the last possible moment and only hints at it every so often before that.

What's the point of the evasiveness? Is it to make us question why no one who knows her and knows what happened to her comes right out with information indirectly or tries to confront her about it? Is it to make us feel guilty for finding fault in the multiple ways makes things more difficult for herself and those around her?

The simple answer is probably the correct one. It's a cheap and easy way to add some pathos to a story that and a character who intentionally keep any kind of emotions at a distance. By the end, the choice to give Cora a tragic back story feels less like a way to help us understand her and more like a tactic to excuse exactly who she has been the entire movie. It's false and manipulative, and more importantly, the move is in complete opposition to everything the movie has been until then.

Up to that point, the comedy is of the hit-or-miss variety, too, but it's honest and consistent about the character, at least. Stalter is devoted to that notion, as well, while also providing an undercurrent of insecurity that makes Cora and her behavior understandable.

When we first meet her, Cora is playing music at an open mic night in L.A., and it's a wonder there's anyone left in the audience when the movie finds her. Strumming an acoustic guitar, she sings about love being a lie, about inevitable heartbreak with or apart from a romantic partner, and insulting anybody who believes differently from her on the subject. This is the kind of song Cora writes and performs when she's technically in a relationship, which makes one wonder what a break-up tune from her might be like.

She's only "technically" romantically involved since Cora is in an open relationship with her girlfriend Justine (Jojo T. Gibbs), who's still living in Portland. After hooking up with a random guy at a club in a sequence that amusingly grows in its awkwardness (Her response, "You're the random dude," is one of a couple good punch lines), Cora video-calls Justine and seemingly has some suspicions confirmed. Someone is with her girlfriend—and not just in some kind of casual-fling sort of way.

That prompts an impromptu trip back to Portland, where Cora meets the other woman. Her name is Riley (Ayden Mayeri), and after some dueling territorialism between the two women, Justine returns home to the unexpected sight of Cora.

It's a fine setup, especially because of the impasse between Cora, who's too stubborn to admit what's right in front of her—that Justine has moved on—and plain for anyone to see, and Justine, who's too nice to hurt the woman she has dated for five years so suddenly, and Riley, who's almost as frustrated that Justine won't come out and say it as she is with the intruding not-quite-an-ex-girlfriend-yet. Things escalate as family and friends show up for a party, and everyone has to navigate how uncomfortable the situation is and balance it with how unwelcome Cora has made herself.

This doesn't last, unfortunately, as Cora sets out on some adventures involving a lost dog, a confrontation at a club, an online date that becomes more—and involves more people—than she bargained for, and chance encounters with a guy (played by Manny Jacinto) whom she met on the flight home—after attempting to steal his first-class seat. There's a randomness to the storytelling that's intriguing, since the movie is theoretically more about the character than the situations in which she finds herself, and frustrating, because the constant introduction of new situations makes it feel like the opposite of that goal.

It's tough, then, to call Cora Bora formulaic, despite some romantic-comedy trappings and the sitcom-like scenarios. It is, though, easier to call it safe, particularly once the third act indulges in Cora's maudlin reaction to the uncovering of her back story. The character doesn't necessarily deserve better, but either from the start or through to the end, we deserve at least some honesty about her.

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