Drugstore June – An Irritating Oddball Comedy

The low stakes oddball comedy has always been a fixture of indie film. Often using their limited means to their advantage, they allow audiences to truly hone in on their wacky stories and characters. That being said, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will always be for everyone. Sometimes they don’t come off as intended but comedy is subjective. Drugstore June, for better or worse, is another example of this. While it is simple and won’t take too much time from audiences’ days (running at only 91-minutes), the real question is whether or not that journey is worth it? Meant to be a millennial satire, it does so from the perspective of an absolutely irritating character that will inevitably rub some people the wrong way as the titular June and the lack of substance in her journey over the course of the film is tiring to watch despite the film’s short running time. Adding to its issues is the fact that the film simply isn’t funny, though the ones who can get on board with June and her ways may find some redeeming qualities here. Otherwise, a decent comedic supporting cast could be enough for their fans.

Drugstore June, as mentioned, follows an eccentric young woman named June (Povitsky) who had no dreams and no aspirations whatsoever, still living with her parents and working at her local small town pharmacy owned by a man named Bill (Lee). Going to the beat of her own drum, she essentially went back and forth doing whatever she wanted whenever she wanted with no filter and little sense of accountability. Obsessed with her ex-boyfriend Davey (Haley Joel Osment), who had clearly moved on from her and was now with his fiancé Kelly (Miranda Cosgrove), and looking to leverage her so-called social media following as potential answer, June’s life was stuck in a holding pattern. However, things seemed to change once Bill’s pharmacy found itself unceremoniously robbed. Taking matters into her own hands, she went about her own investigation of the crime which went about the same way one would expect. Stumbling her way from one precarious situation to another, there wasn’t much there. Stepping out of her comfort zone, the point of it all appeared to be for June to somehow be redeemed by learning to get over Davey and grow up but she was definitely a special case, thus coming back to the is it worth it question.

Meanwhile, though the dysfunctional dynamic between June and her family was fine, it was mostly window dressing. She argued with her gamer younger brother Jonathan (Wardell) as most brothers and sisters do while her out of touch father Arnold (James Remar) and her embarrassingly supportive mother Marla (Beverly D’Angelo) rounded out the dynamic. Most of the substance came from the former as the family moments were just a means to break up the other subplots and not much more, joining Bill, Davey, and Kelly as other thin characters. Full of unrealized potential, the film ultimately leans to heavily on a character that it doesn’t seem to fully know what to do with. Sucking up all the air, June chokes out everything else.

Drugstore June was okay in terms of performances but that could be attributed to the subpar material. Povitsky has the right energy as June, however, she takes it way too far to the point of irritability and that could be hard to look past. Along with a meandering and a largely pointless story, the result is a recipe for disaster. The rest of the cast were merely relegated to just being there. To the film’s credit, that cast did include a few fun cameos that brought it some life.

In the end, Drugstore June won’t be for everyone but this oddball comedy is likely to be more irritating than endearing.

still courtesy of Shout Studios

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.