E-Mail This Article to a Friend CONNIE AND CARLA

Nia Vardalos, writer and star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, is back in all of her perky glory in this cross-dressing comedy. Lifting the plot but none of the brilliance from Billy Wilder’s classic Some Like It Hot, Michael Lembeck’s film has Connie (Vardalos) and Carla (Toni Collette) as down-on-their-luck performers who witness a mob hit and go on the run. Like Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, they find that dressing up as members of the opposite sex is the best disguise, but they take it a step further — this is where Victor/Victoria comes in — by becoming drag queens. The duo get a job as a cabaret act in a gay bar and quickly become a sensation.

Vardalos and Toni Collette do show a campy sensibility, particularly in their musical numbers (they do a Jesus Christ Superstar medley), that makes them believable as gay men, but it’s a one-note joke. David Duchovny brings some much-needed dry wit to his role as the straight brother of another drag queen who becomes confused by his attraction to Connie, but he can’t save the by-the-numbers plot. Although Vardalos’s sit-com didn’t last, that seems to be more her milieu; her characters would play better on the small screen.