The Banger Sisters

OPENED JANUARY 31, CERT 15, 94 MINS

If Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous gave us a (rose-tinted) reflection of the '70s rock groupie scene, Bob Dolman's debut asks where those groupies are now. For Suzette (Goldie Hawn, showing daughter Kate how it's really done), the golden years have gone, and she's sacked from her LA bar job. Her plea that, "Jim Morrison passed out in that toilet! With me underneath him!", is met by the new manager with, "Morrison's a ghost. And so are you."

Suzette drives to Phoenix to visit her former cohort Vinnie (Susan Sarandon)—in their heyday the pair were the Banger Sisters (a thinly-veiled Plaster Casters). But Vinnie's now a respectable suburban mom, horrified to find the fake-boobed, leopardskin-clad Suzette at her door with a murderous writer (Geoffrey Rush) in tow. Suzette nurses Vinnie's daughter through an acid trip; barriers come down. Soon the old friends are stoned and cackling over polaroids of rock stars' penises. At times it does get a bit chick-flick learning-and-bonding, but Hawn and Sarandon go for it with self-deprecating gusto, and you'll laugh like a roadie.

Rating: 4 / 10