Drugstore June Review: Indie Comedy’s Insufferable Heroine Is A Schadenfreude Goldmine

Drugstore June opens with Bill (Bobby Lee), June’s (Esther Povitsky) boss at the local pharmacy, telling her that he “gets” her. He’s using that to segue into the latest customer complaints about her behavior, but he also seems to mean it. That might make him the only one. June is a source of frustration and annoyance to pretty much everyone in her life, whether they’ve just met or have known her for years. To spend time with her is to be driven up the wall. How ballsy, then, to build a movie around us spending 91 minutes with her.

Drugstore June

Drugstore June is a comedy film directed by Nicholaus Goosen and released in North America in 2024. Still living at home with her parents and trying to make it big as an influencer, June isn’t making much headway in life. However, when a pharmacy in her town is robbed, and her boyfriend dumps her, she decides to take on the drugstore case herself in an attempt to get over him and try to set herself on a better path.

Pros

• Pulls off a deceptively ambitious comedic premise
• Strong perspective & atmosphere
• Funny!

Cons

• Lacks consistency
• Not all supporting characterizations are successful
• Doesn’t really create interest in June’s growth

Drugstore June Finds Laughs In A Tricky Comedic Setup

And how impressive that I’ve come away from it with a net-positive experience. While it generates laughs at a joke level, the real comedic engine is powered by our ability to identify with the poor, exasperated souls conversing with June in any given scene. There’s intrigue in seeing just how she will stymie their attempts to achieve whatever they were hoping to get out of talking to her, and their reactions bring a feeling of schadenfreude-type release. To pull that off at feature length takes some skill, both behind and in front of the camera.

Craft-wise, Drugstore June displays a clear personality. Director Nicholaus Goossen, who wrote the script with Povitsky, wields the camera, music, and performances to create a cohesive atmosphere, which proves essential. It’s indie-comedy quirky, but specific enough to allow for some intentional playfulness. This storyworld is a bit off, but if everyone behaves somewhat strangely to us, June is strange by their standards. Part of the fun is not knowing when the movie will throw you a curveball and suggest June’s mom stashing June’s dinner under the sink to hide it from her dad is a normal occurrence.

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Esther Povitsky Delivers The Right Performance

But in this movie, it all comes down to the supporting characters

As a performer, Povitsky is locked-in, and she toes a difficult line to keep June from wearing us out. Her line readings (“I’m half Jewish, half regular“) are frequently winners. However, the movie’s structure means that her scene partners often determine whether things are working, and mileage may vary significantly here. This is less an issue of acting than of characterization and plotting. The moments that work best either have a strong narrative frame, or feature characters that collide with June’s energy in an interesting way.

These include interrogations by two detectives (Jackie Sandler & Al Madrigal) after Bill’s pharmacy is robbed; a hostile encounter with her old boss (Ms. Pat); and some delightful back-and-forth with Owen (Danny Griffin), a recent meet-cute of June’s, and his two friends (Nick Rutherford & Jonnie “Dumbfoundead” Park) over pancakes. Beverly D’Angelo as June’s mother is also a clear standout, making the most of every moment she’s onscreen. The sibling dynamic between June and her brother Jonathan (Brandon Wardell) worked less well for me, and the full family scenes generally aren’t as engaging as June’s investigation of the robbery.

​​​​Where the limitations of Drugstore June really show are in June’s development arc. She does grow over the course of the movie, and in an ideal scenario, we’d realize by the end how invested we’d become in that growth. That never really happened for me — she plays as such a comedic construct that expecting real change from her felt as reasonable as expecting it from Bugs Bunny. Too much sincerity in the filmmaking would’ve been deadly, but Povitsky and Goossen thankfully frame it just enough like another joke. Of course June found a way to learn something from this.

The bottom line: even with some inconsistencies, Drugstore June is funny. It creatively approaches a deceptively ambitious setup and doesn’t overstay its welcome. There are ideas in it that feel like raw versions of what could be refined in the filmmakers’ next features, but especially in what’s typically an uninspiring month for new theatrical movies, this comedy is well worth a look.