Kathryn Upside Down is a 2019 comedy about a woman whose world is turned upside down after an unexpected discovery.
So, there’s an extended bathroom scene at the start of writer/director Allie Loukas‘ independent comedy Kathryn Upside Down that goes on for more than ten minutes. It has flashbacks to a one night stand, a drunk girl, a plunger, and actual on-screen feces. It’s supremely odd and perhaps purposefully off putting, introducing three main characters who come to realize that they are linked by a mistake in the past. It’s actually not the first bit of bathroom ‘humor’ Loukas aggressively inserts into her little project, a curiously offbeat story that isn’t without its charms and a winning lead performance.
Kathyrn (Loukas) is a mid-twenties girl living a posh-ish life in Lake Forest, hating her job as a receptionist at a hair salon and her stepfather (David Bastian) more. He’s a stuck up, obnoxious money man, verbally abusive to Kathryn’s mother Elizabeth (Angela Beckefeld), who is harboring an old secret. Too bad at her annual garden party, the toilet clogs and that old secret shows up to fix it. He’s Bob (Christopher M. Walsh), an overweight plumber who has no clue he fathered a daughter. Now it’s time for a reunion and a chance to catch up as Bob offers to help Kathryn move into her new apartment across town.
Pulling triple duty, Loukas (in her writing, directing, and acting debut) is perhaps best in the acting chair, scatchingly cynical and a spitfire of jagged jarbs as Kathyrn, properly convincing and never once not fun (and sometimes emotional) to watch. She has this sort of droll indifference about her that I suspect is poking fun at her generation, but manages to not make it feel contrived or obvious. Either way, she is fine-tuned to the role and corrals it all together just when it seems like it’s about to spiral out of control.
Storywise, there’s not much to cling to, the simple father/daughter reconnect fairly predictable but at least made pleasant with the terrific chemistry between Loukas and Walsh, who, once past the awkward bathroom shenanigans, click with surprising honesty. The growth between them is well paced and earnest, even if it’s occasionally tripped up by some moments that don’t quite align with the rest, including almost anything involving Bastian (in a perfuctory role).
Loukas throws a lot at the screen, with Kathryn’s new roommate a gay man named Raymundo (Carlton G. McBeth), all mixed up in a host of oddball characters. Fortunately, they don’t dominate though do feel a bit like padding. When it gets back to her and Walsh (and even Beckefeld, who is quite good as well), things find their place, and thank goodness because while Kathryn Upside Down has its flaws, there’s good things to discover and a new talent to keep an eye on. Plus, any movie that references The Olympia Restaurant skit earns a point and half.