Final Rating: 3/5
In the independent teen comedy Edie Arnold Is A Loser, Edie Arnold (Adi Madden Cabrera) is…well, a loser. At least she is in the eyes of the popular kids at her all-girls Catholic high school.
She has a core group of three friends/fellow outcasts, including her quick-witted, shameless, orthodontic headgear-wearing best friend Frances (McKenna Tuckett). Edie and Frances play the drums and organ respectively at church services and choir practice, although they’re frequently apathetic and missing musical cues due to sheer boredom.
They find a poster advertising a local punk rock show on the community bulletin board and decide to check it out. It turns out that this is exactly their kind of rebellious scene they want to be a part of.
Before long, they recruit their other two friends to start a punk band called “The Nundead”, a direct thumbing to the nose of their oppressive religious upbringing. Their breakthrough song is a rollicking cover of “Gloria in Excelsis Deo”, and their hookiest lyric from another song has Frances belting out “Cannibalize your Lord and Saviour.” It’s unsubtle, but it’s certainly effective. This lands them quick local fandom, but also in trouble at school and the community.
Edie Arnold Is A Loser is the debut feature-length film for co-directors Megan Rico and Kade Atwood, who previously worked together on sketch comedy show Studio C. Aspects of the film do definitely have bit of a sketch comedy vibe, and it is likely the reason that the film has the amount of outright hilarious one-liners and visual gags that it does (including the name of the girl’s school, which garnered a great reaction in the theatre).
As with most teen comedies, it certainly owes some debt to films and filmmakers that have been successful in these areas before. It uses the kind of low-brow humour that a show like South Park and a film like Superbad does, and it mostly does it successfully without too many eyeroll moments.
The musical performance moments (as well as some animated flourishes for emphasis in certain scenes) does remind of Edgar Wright’s memorable scrappy rock performances from the various bands in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. And you can take your pick on references to teenage female rivalries across many decades of films.
This is not to say that Edie Arnold is wholly derivative, because it certainly succeeds on its own terms. A lot of this comes from some standout performances that provide hilarious, if a bit overblown, portraits of teenage personalities. Adi Madden Cabrera gives patience and snark to Edie, who is both effortlessly cool behind a drumkit and nervously awkward around her school crush Walter Boyd (rhymes with “altar boy”).
Lucas Van Orden is perfectly cringey and douche-y as Walter, a boy who is clearly trying too hard to follow his God while also being a complete dude-bro. Head of the school Sister Myra is played perfectly by elder character actress Star Herrmann, the comically oppressive, morality police figurehead denouncing punk rock, weed, oral sex, and other activities she believes are the Devil’s work.
Probably most notable is McKenna Tuckett’s over-the-top portrayal of Frances, a ball of vulgar energy that is all too willing to be a spectacle. She has great comedic timing both in delivering a snappy line and performing physical comedy. Obviously, she becomes the frontwoman for “The Nundead” with all the vim and vigor of a Karen O or Kathleen Hanna before her. She makes Frances a great foil for Edie, which helps to push them both out of their comfort zones and into their own personalities.
Musically, the film also succeeds for the most part. The music was done by a duo of independent musicians: Nikolas Balsiero, part of Miami garage/surf rock band SunGhosts, and Anand Wilder, singer/producer for former Brooklyn indie rock band Yeasayer.
The tunes are catchy, and the stage performances do sync up to them quite well. There were some sound mixing choices during performances where certain instruments were turned up in the mix as the camera was on them, which was a bit distracting and not quite fully successful.
But the punk ethos feels genuine. Edie and Frances decide to form the band with their friends before they’re even worried about learning to play their instruments, a familiar situation in the history of punk and riot grrrl music. Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Bratmobile, and The Slits would all be proud.
The story isn’t breaking much new ground for this genre, but it doesn’t have to. It’s a fun romp of a film that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and (as many comedies do) worked even more as a communal theatrical experience.
Edie Arnold Is A Loser was seen during the 2026 Calgary International Film Festival.
