“Teenage girls are like mysterious, dark, and dangerous …”
– Keely Jones, Ted Lasso
First films are not barometers by which all subsequent films must account, but they play a massive role in the expectations audiences create. If a first film is a massive hit, the sophomore outing can’t be anything less than that. If a first film doesn’t make an impression, the bar is significantly lower. It’s with great sadness to report that the first feature-length directorial project for co-directors Kade Atwood (Studio C) and Megan Rico (Studio C) is such an unapologetic, punk-rock explosion of awesomeness from start to finish that any follow-up may have to involve actual devil worship to make it any more rock ‘n‘ roll. Having its world premiere in the Competition section of SXSW Film & TV Festival 2026, their Edie Arnold is a Loser reads like a basic self-empowerment teen comedy with a music bend, but it’s so much more as it never reduces itself to YA tropes as it blasts its audience in 4/4 time with abrupt honesty and unabashed hilarity.
L-R: McKenna Tuckett as Frances and Adi Madden Cabrera as Edie Arnold in the comedy, EDIE ARNOLD IS A LOSER, an Infigo Films production. Photo courtesy of Infigo Films.
While cleaning up the community board at their all-girls Catholic high school, best friends Edie and Frances (Adi Madden Cabrera and McKenna Tuckett, respectively) come across a flyer for a punk show and, despite their general lack of cool, decide to go. After Edie unexpectedly finds herself on stage, subbing in for a subpar punk drummer, the duo decides to start their own band with friends and fellow social outcasts Ellen and Judith (Alexa Paige and Niki Rahimi, respectively). Starting an impromptu band is hard enough under regular circumstances, but between boys, school “It Girl” Kati Vidal (Alana Mei Kern), the dean of the school, Sister Myra (Star Herrmann) on the hunt for reasons to expel troublemakers, and Edie’s domineering mom, Luanne (Cherish Rodriguez), getting on stage may be the least of their worries.
L-R: Adi Madden Cabrera as Edie Arnold and McKenna Tuckett as Frances in the comedy, EDIE ARNOLD IS A LOSER, an Infigo Films production. Photo courtesy of Infigo Films.
Powered by Rico’s script, Edie Arnold is decisively its own story, even as it wears familiar aspects on its frame. It’s a story of young love, friendship, and carving out one’s own identity within a rigid framework, all channeled through a specific feminine lens within a specific experience, yet it also maintains a beautiful universality. One doesn’t have to be a student at all-girl high school Our Lady of Undying Sadness Catholic School or participate in Sunday services to understand the difference in faith of those who serve within G-d’s love and those who wield G-d’s wrath. Anyone who pays attention (both within the film and in the real world) recognizes the frequent hypocrisy in the ways, within faith, men are viewed versus women, the tension between the older, established regime and younger staff and congregants in terms of scripture interpretation, and the struggle between two generations of Undying Sadness students, without any sort of exposition breakdown. The ingeniousness of the script is how anyone can understand the sense of parent-child discord, education oversight, and social pressure regardless of one’s awareness of the Ecclesiastes, mass, communion, or other specific-to-faith aspects that course throughout Edie Arnold. Instead, these jokes play like impact beats, giving the driving rhythm a specific flavor that (one presumes) speaks to Rico’s own experience and worldview. More than all of this, as if keeping to the get-in-get-out style of punk, Rico’s script never gets bogged down in the tropes it starts to set up by finding refreshing and in-world befitting resolutions. This film gets down to business by using its head and its heart rather than just following the rote path paved by teen comedy expectation.
Front L-R: Adi Madden Cabrera as Edie Arnold and McKenna Tuckett as Frances in the comedy, EDIE ARNOLD IS A LOSER, an Infigo Films production. Photo courtesy of Infigo Films.
A powerful element bolstering the script and feeding the narrative many jolts of delicious energy is Steven Rico’s editing. Editing is a technical craft all on its own that can reshape a moment by what it shows and what it doesn’t, as well as what we hear and what we don’t. To that end, sound plays a massive part in the narrative. One beautiful selection in editing and cinematography is a simple choice to reduce almost all sound while pushing in on an actor. This choice powerfully uplifts what is an otherwise expected moment into something far more rousing. It’s not just emotions that get juiced, the editing also amplifies the ordinary into hilarity, whether it’s the opening credits with their ‘zine-like decorations and text cut to ensure maximum readability or transforming a quick glance away from friends to discover they’re suddenly miles away, all of which feels like borrowing from the works of Jonathan Amos (Baby Driver; Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) and Paul Machliss (Last Night in Soho; Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) as small moments are infused with propulsive energy through the timing of smart edits and a script that never misses a beat.
Adi Madden Cabrera as Edie Arnold in the comedy, EDIE ARNOLD IS A LOSER, an Infigo Films production. Photo courtesy of Infigo Films.
Of course, the script can be 5×5 with the editing to match, but they’re nothing with the performances. This is a film that’s full of moments that somehow always get better, whether it’s from side characters or our main, and, most impressively, the majority are relative newcomers. The singer for the band that Edie steps in for, Iggy, is played by Gabe Root with a sweet sincerity that helps support the notion that punk, true punk, is anti-establishment and when the establishment throws a middle-finger at DEI, punk throws one back. Bouncer at the club Iggy and the girls play at, Mohawk Guy, played by Terran Lowe (By His Hand), steals every damn scene he’s in by delivering lines with cool clarity, diverging reality from expectation as he’s a proper kind and intelligent dude with a masterpiece of a mohawk upon his head. Paige (Buffalo Daze) and Rahimi are given less time than Cabrera and Tuckett, yet the actors make their characters fully-formed, so even if we don’t know what’s going on in their individual stories, their contributions stand out both in the scene work with their castmates and on stage as part of the band. Cabrera and Tuckett, however, are the hearts blood for the film, each one playing their respective parts as two halves of a whole, neither one really able to achieve their dreams without the other and the chemistry between the actors explodes off the screen. In truth, half the fun of Edie Arnold is trying to determining if any of the cast is in the process of breaking SNL-style while someone else is delivering a line or reacting to another. On the one hand, it’s a tad distracting to see a slightly wrong-for-the-moment facial expression on one of the cast; however, there’s also something infectious about the way they smile or try to hide a laugh that brings the audience in even further.
It’s worth noting, by the by, that while the film isn’t a musical, per se, there’s music a plenty and each song is a joke and half by themselves. One can only hope that Atwood and Rico release an EP ‘cause even this Jewish kid would dig bouncing around to “The Ode to Communion.”
L-R: Filmmakers Megan Rico and Kade Atwood on the set of the comedy, EDIE ARNOLD IS A LOSER, an Infigo Films production. Photo courtesy of Infigo Films and Brenna Empey.
The world so often finds comfort in conformity, cradled by the notion that if I’m like everyone else, then I’m safe, I’m secure, and I have what I need. But those same folks often don’t think about what they give up by refusing to be their authentic selves. While there are some low-hanging fruit moments in which faith gets a few dong-taps to the hypocrisy within its culture as it relates to faithful men versus harlot daughters, there’s so much more within Edie Arnold is a Loser that feels less like a rebellion and more like a reclamation of self, that one can be faithful and godly *and* independent and strong. That’s the kind of piety when need more of in this world. That’s the kind of message that should be far more pervasive. Life, laugh, love — and drop a sick, fat beat.
Screening during SXSW Film & TV Festival 2026.
For more information, head either to the official Edie Arnold is a Loser SXSW webpage or film website.
Final Score: 4.5 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, In Theaters, Recommendation, Reviews
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