Film Review: Edie Arnold Is a Loser

Edie Arnold Is a Loser
Director: Kade Atwood, Megan Rico
Infigo Films
In Theaters: 09.04.2026

If you loved Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), I’ve got news for you: Edie (Adi Madden Cabrera) is the new kid on the block. In Edie Arnold Is a Loser — a ramshackle coming-of-age comedy following parochial schoolgirls-turned-punks — you’ll experience a heightened reality that reads like the chicken-scratch diary of the funniest girl you know. Oh, and she might be working through some Catholic guilt.

Shot in Salt Lake City, the film follows Edie and Frances (McKenna Tuckett), two schoolgirls who, after seeing their first punk show, decide to form a band of their own. They cobble together a quartet of self-proclaimed losers and call themselves the NunDead. While avoiding being caught playing “the devil’s music” by their parents and Mother Superior (Star Hermann), the NunDead scramble to win the Battle of the Bands.

In the meantime, Edie finally has a chance to go on a date with heartthrob altar boy, Walter Boyd (Lucas Van Orden, Drop Off). I saw this film premiere at the Broadway Centre Cinemas and can’t overstate the riotous, knowing laughter of every woman in the theater — including my wife — when Edie and Walter have their first kiss. In scenes like this, the film fires on all cylinders. It has a hyper-awareness of what it means to be a horny teenager left disappointed by excitable boys — and the use of Edgar Wright-style editing is doing God’s work here. I’m ashamed to say I definitely gave my fair share of sloppy kisses, so the secondhand embarrassment had me in stitches, too.

I’d be remiss to leave out that there are moments when the performances feel a little overcooked; like something out of a campy community theater production, but all in all, these emerging actors did a fantastic job with the material. There’s no doubt that the film is meant to be frenetic and somewhat campy. It just struggles to commit to exactly how far it wants to go, and I feel that resistance. Tuckett’s performance, for example, either lands or it doesn’t. At times, she manages to be the scene-stealing sidekick she sets out to be – and she truly is a lovable goblin of a girl – but there are moments when her dialed-up deliveries only succeed in breaking immersion.

It’s not a perfect film, but Edie Arnold Is a Loser is still a hilariously touching and wild ride. It has every trapping of a great coming-of-age comedy with a unique blend of elements from films like Napoleon Dynamite (2004), Eighth Grade (2018) and Bottoms (2023). The director duo, Kade Atwood (Studio C) and Megan Rico (Fetal Fury: Escape the Womb), managed to make this film, for its few flaws, feel like an instant cult classic.

Edie Arnold Is a Loser is well worth your time, and you’d be doing yourself a disservice by waiting to stream it at home. There’s something incredibly contagious about seeing this film in a theater full of people who relate deeply to the material. And you’d be wise to ignore the critics of feminist coming-of-age comedies who make the ridiculous claim that they’re made solely for women. That shit reeks of the bygone era when everyone and their dog was saying Booksmart (2019) was just Superbad (2007) for girls.

So, is Edie Arnold just Scott Pilgrim for girls? Not even close. Does it take inspiration? Most definitely. But it brings an entirely fresh perspective to one of the greatest genres of the last few decades — and it does so without reducing itself to a mirror image of its predecessors. It’s new. It’s energetic. The laughs are more hit than miss, and the heart is stitched right on its sleeve. —Keyon Hejazi-Far

Read more from Keyon Hejazi-Far:
Film Review: Mouse
Salt Lake Book Festival Fills the Sundance Void

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