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Val (Adrian Bouchet) and his wife Xena (Stephanie Siadaran) run a sanctuary somewhere in the Italian mountains, staffed by stoner right-hand-man Crispy (Dan Hildebrand), punky kitchen help Ig (Emily Lamey) and alcoholic manager Pete (John Lightbody), and while they're a really relaxed (if not exactly effective) team and the villa as well as the surroundings are nothing short of breathtaking, business is simply terrible - until yogi Malcolm (Oliver Tobias) rents the place for him and his group for a "epiphany retreat", for which he needs a very spiritual place - whcih also includes vegan food only, and no drugs and alcohol, not even coffee. It should be easy to keep this up for a week, right even for Val and Xena and their team - but there's one problem, Malcolm is Xena's ex, and soon enough games of alpha dog commence. And if that's not enough, they also engage a cook, Alexa (Kristin Milward), who thinks little of vegan food or spartan kitchen. Plus Malcolm himself might be charismatic and full of (often over-simplified) Asian wisdom, but he's not a people person and repeatedly drives especially his second-in-command Friedl (Tooli Shipster) to tears. So soon enough, the epiphany retreat turns into utter, alcohol-drenched and drug-lined chaos ...

Now while the central conflict of this movie, a hedonistic vs a spiritual lifestyle, might come across as a bit blunt, the film as such is actually more layered than expected, especially as it doesn't take sides but just takes the mickey out of both - and it's really a film that's full of sight gags that go beyond stoner comedy clichés while at the same time managing to tell its story with a lot of heart revolving around relatable characters played by a solid cast. So in other words, pretty cool entertainment for sure.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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