Who Could Ask for Anything More?

Life, as we learn sooner or later, can contain an uncertain mix of pain and pleasure. Sometimes the pain is intolerable; other times, the pleasure borders on delirious.

Last night I had the delirious pleasure of attending the premiere of my oldest daughter’s feature film directing debut—a movie she also wrote.

Titled The Wrong Girls and starring Alia Shawkat and Kristen Stewart, the film is a feather-weight stoner farce that is at once a sci-fi tale, a sometime thriller, a flat-out comedy, and an ode to friendship and the joys of being oneself.

Plus there are talking cats.

It was not the first time I’d seen the film, but its charm and originality continue to delight me. Nothing in the movie suggests anything inherited. It is sui generis—its humor and originality are uniquely Dylan Meyer’s.

Among other treats was the opportunity for Kristen Stewart to demonstrate hitherto unrevealed comedy chops. Everyone in the film seems to be having a swell time—and that included last night’s young and very hip audience, who seemed completely in sync with the film’s goofiness and weed logic.

As her father, watching the film was an experience of dizzying happiness. It took thirteen years to get The Wrong Girls made. Over those years and more, I watched my kid more than put in the hours. Dylan waited tables, tended bars, assisted studio executives, worked for a time for me, and generally swabbed every deck. To my knowledge, she never complained.

None of these many jobs and experiences—good or bad—appear to have been wasted on her. She seems to have learned every lesson, including patience and persistence in the face of sometimes numbing adversity. I watched with an occasionally aching heart as Dylan endured denials and setbacks.

But those same setbacks and experiences seem neither to have soured nor embittered her. Suffering has not been lost on her either. The film she made is goofy, but it is also warm and even wise. It was pure joy from start to finish.

As her dad, in the words of Ira Gershwin—who could ask for anything more?