Kevin Smith follows up Tusk with part two of his "True North" trilogy: Yoga Hosers. The Colleens (Lily-Rose Depp, Harley Quinn Smith) are sophomores in high school who love their smartphones, their band, and practicing yoga. They hate working at the Eh-2-Zed convenient store, Winnipeg's go-to shop for artisanal maple syrups. When their plans to attend a senior party backfire, the girls team up with bumbling "manhunter" Guy LaPointe (Johnny Depp) to destroy the evil lurking beneath the store.
Your tolerance for this kind of film depends on what you think of Canada jokes and late-period Kevin Smith. It's no secret that the guy loves his daughter and wanted to give her a fun vehicle for her first leading role, but the man was high as a kite when he wrote this script. That said, I was grinning ear to ear from start to finish. Maybe it was the margaritas beforehand, but I left wanting to watch the forthcoming part three, Moose Jaws, immediately.
Yoga Hosers is only slightly less messed up than Tusk, which made it easier to devour the nonstop manic hilarity this time. Clever quips, sight gags and cameos pick up the slack by the time we quit laughing at the millionth utterances of the long-O's in "oot," "aboot," and "sorey" (sic "sorry").
Perhaps both the younger Depp and the younger Smith need a project with more meat on it before we all start taking them seriously as rising stars, but they navigate this material like pros. They're perfect fits for the Colleens. The older Depp solidifies LaPointe as my favorite of his post-Captain Jack Sparrow characters. From the shifting moles to his occasionally cross-eyed glare, every nuance is hysterical.
I don't trust the people who came out of Yoga Hosers thinking poorly about it. The older Smith, in his pot-addled state, miraculously managed to weave subtexts about chastity, feminism, and the flaws of Gen-Y into a colorfully original script. I promise you've never seen these subjects explored the way Yoga Hosers presents them.
Again, your enjoyment depends entirely on your suspension of disbelief and tolerance for Canada jokes. However, one should expect nothing less from this stage in Smith's career. Come prepared for an absurdist blast.
A-
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