STEPH TOLEV FILTH QUEEN REVIEW: Buy Your Tolev Stock Now, It's Going Up [4.5/5]
Eh Buddy Boy?
[Rating 4.5/5] - dir. Jen Zaborowski - 2025 - United States - R - 55m - Stand-up Comedy
This is the first film or stand-up special I’ve wanted to review using GIFs of clips from the project itself. How exactly do I do justice to a comedian willing to prance-skip across the stage as she regales us with tales of Hinge dates with 99-year-old men and the bodily freedom that inspires, or to her inimitable stomps?
Steph Tolev, Canadian-born LA-based comedian, actor, and podcaster, is one of a kind. Her comedic blitzkrieg (one part physical, two parts crafted poetic raunch) has earned her rave reviews and support from comedy gods like Bill Burr and Bobby Lee, and from her generational comedic “classmates”, like Annie Lederman and Stavros Halkias.
After cutting her teeth for years across Canada with a home base in Toronto, Tolev packed up and moved to L.A. There, she doggedly pursued stand-up in the hallowed halls of the city’s most legendary clubs, and started a podcast entitled Steph Infection, where guests are invited to, in addition to chatting about their life and career, discuss a gross-out injury or ailment they’ve suffered.
Her career jumped to another level after Burr saw her and brought her into the fold as part of Netflix’s Bill Burr’s Friends Who Kill, a collection of short stand-up sets from promising up-and-comers. Her unique success following that appearance led to an equally small but notable appearance in Burr’s movie, Old Dads, then a minor role in Tires, and finally her own full-length stand-up special.
Filth Queen is as good as Tolev’s shorter material (from her crowd work to her more official clips) promises. Story after story, joke after joke, squat after squat; it’s all gas and no brakes. This might seem exhausting to a viewer, or to a comedian cut from a different cloth, like Mike Birbiglia or Marc Maron (I put them together because I know how mad it would make the latter), but after years of putting in the hard work, Tolev is more than capable of making an hour feel like a mad 15 minutes.
Tolev is equally adept at invoking a kind of honest laughter from women that I (a straight white guy, it must be said) haven’t heard since Amy Schumer. To be clear, I am not saying these two comedians are similar. They aren’t, other than their respective talents for mining subjects women clearly talk about, but never so publicly. Tolev is able to make herself the butt of the joke (often a disgusting one) and never lose the audience’s respect. This is due to her conspiratorial demeanour. Most comedians who make fun of themselves do so by playing the insecure, anxious, or gross loser. Tolev admits to being all of those things, but paired with the outsized physicality she employs time and time again in Filth Queen, the confidence it takes to reveal what she’s revealing and act the way she’s acting is unmistakable, and puts at ease, in a way.
She describes a first date where her and a smaller than averaged sized guy attend some sort of interactive fishery. One of the attractions is a big weight scale, where you can see how much you’d be worth if you were a tuna. She laughs in a girly way at her date who’s price comes out to $600. She steps on the scale. $2,000.
In the aforementioned bit about the 99-year-old man, she describes not having to worry about her body insecurities because the man can’t see. Sex with the lights on for once? Yes, please. Sucking in the gut? Not this time. She then learns he can’t even hear. Imagine what she does with the freedom.
Later, on a date with a farmer, she’s somewhat enticed by the fact that he’s got a sex swing back at his place. When she arrives, she finds out it’s still in the box. “Are we assembling an IKEA desk together? …We’re doing a full episode of Home Improvement right here. This is happening. I’m obviously Al.”
She not only makes the most of her rapt audience on stage, she bookends the stand-up set with little “skits”. These don’t always work. Sometimes I roll my eyes, thinking, “Just get to the jokes.” This is not one of those times. Tolev’s proven herself on camera and therefore I was curious what she’d do with the narrative real estate. Of course, she goes for winking, silly physical comedy, which peaks when she’s caught like a fish in a net by her real-life boyfriend (and nephew of Shooter McGavin actor Christopher McDonald), Jefferson, along the Boston shore.
Buy Tolev stock now, people. It’s about to go up.
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P.S. Netflix: Put the special on the homepage, at least in her native Canada.
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Steph Tolev: Filth Queen is out now on Netflix.
[Rating 4.5/5] - dir. Jen Zaborowski - 2025 - United States - R - 55m - Stand-up Comedy