EIFF 2016: Yoga Hosers

Harley Quinn Smith and Lily-Rose Depp star in Kevin Smith's good-natured meta-comedy mess Yoga Hosers

Relying on a host of sub-Austin Powers gags – incessant Canada puns, tiny Nazis made from bratwurst, Johnny Depp as a French-Canadian with wandering facial moles and the voice of a muted Jerry Lewis – Kevin Smith’s Yoga Hosers might be appropriately described as good-natured meta-awfulness. It doesn’t shy away from its glaringly adolescent stupidity, although it’s likely Smith intended it to register on a much more gleeful level than it actually does.

The film’s titular teens, Winnipeg convenience store clerks Colleen and Colleen (Lily-Rose Depp and Harley Quinn Smith, the daughters of the male lead and the director, respectively) are stuck in retail purgatory, longing for excitement while spending most of their time on Canadian Instagram ('Insta-Can') when not aligning their chakras in yoga class with instructor Yogi Bayer (Justin Long). When they stumble on to a secret plot involving a long-frozen Nazi’s attempt to overtake the Great White North with his deadly fascist sausage clones (the aforementioned 'Bratzis', played by Smith) it’s up to the girls and Depp’s Guy Lapointe to stop his evil scheme.

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As the Colleens, neither Smith nor Depp are exactly scintillating screen presences (despite Depp’s movie-star lineage), but there’s a refreshing, off-kilter genuineness to both. The Colleens cover Anthrax songs (atrociously, but with great joy), share an unabashed mutual affection that’s never catty, and seem completely at ease in and with their own bodies, period jokes and all. This is Smith’s version of a ‘family film’, and it’s possible some teen girls might love it. That doesn’t mean they’re Yoga Hosers' target market (probably not by a long shot), but it’s still heartening to see unconventional yet positive young female characters in a very unlikely place: a clunky, purposefully junky film about killer deli meat.

Yoga Horsers screens at Filmhouse, 21 Jun, 8.50pm and Cineworld, 25 Jun, 6pm