The star of this chirpy, amusing if somewhat glib documentary is Sister Kate, formerly Christine Meeusen, a habit-wearing, self-anointed “nun” and businesswoman born in the American midwest who moved to California and started a thriving marijuana farm.
Determined to sell her product only for medical use, which has been legal in the state since 1996 (marijuana was legalised for recreational use in 2016), Kate teamed up with her brother and employed her own kids and various colourful local characters to keep their crop secure as they expanded into other cannabis-derived products. That’s relevant because although weed consumption is semi-legal in California, there is still a thriving black market for it that brings in its wake criminal cartels, armed robberies and shootouts, as well as censorious law enforcement officers and locals who’d rather all this craziness hadn’t invaded their sleepy agricultural community.
Made with a scattershot randomness that suggests some of the film-makers may have at the very least got a contact high from all the smoking going on around them, this is a messy if endearing work. Just about everyone seems to be playing to a self-assigned type, be it righteous-but-savvy champion of the afflicted (Kate) who sees herself as an activist, or fire-and-brimstone, anti-drugs preacher like the man of God seen here who decries the toll taken by drugs on the community. The law enforcement officers all look like they came straight out of central casting for a cop show pilot for NRA TV.
A little more nuance and historical depth would have been welcome, but this will be serviceable entertainment when it gets to streaming, as long as viewers have a supply on hand.
