Find Your Friends
On the yacht, party party, drinking, what’s up bitches, let’s get messy! It’s all fun and games for Amber, Lavinia, Lola, Zosia and Maddy, knocking back shots and goading each other on to get more wild as the crowd cheers them on until – shock – Amber’s ex Tye shows up on deck with a new girl on his arm, and while she is allowed to be over him (she’s not) it’s not right that he’s over her.
Grabbing a guy and heading to the VIP area below decks, not to make Tye jealous but just to prove that she can, rando dude pushes things too far and Amber flees, deciding to make her point by, like, smashing an actual punch bowl over his head, getting all of them kicked off the yacht, so totally unfair, but my best girls got their weekend coming up in Joshua Tree, and it will be wild!
Find Your Friends written and directed by Izabel Pakzad without subtlety, progression or any interest above base superficial, Amber (Helena Howard) spends every day hanging and partying with Lavinia, Zosia, Lola and Maddy (Bella Thorne, Zión Moreno, Chloe Cherry and Sophia Ali), girls of ambition destined to be “boss bitch CEOs,” arriving at their desert destination and drawing the ire of permanent resident Russell (Chris Bauer) who regards the noisy guests as spoiled, insufferable, irresponsible, entitled rich girls who are out of control.
Amber herself aiming for a PhD once she finishes her masters degree, the snap assessment is not wrong, barely escaping the assault because she was so drunk and rather than dealing with the incident by slowing down or opening up to her closest girlfriends instead throwing herself into another weekend of drinking, partying, hooking up with strangers and then wandering into the hills to take magic mushrooms where the group split up despite being in unknown wilderness with no provisions and patchy signal.
Did Amber ask or deserve to be assaulted, or to then be harassed by a trio of dudes rolling past in their pickup truck? No, but nor has she or any of her friends behaved in a way which could be regarded as sensible, prudent, mature or responsible, turning on each other when their own good times are interrupted and incoherent as they try to report the incident to the police, unsurprisingly dismissed, incapable of composing a thought longer than ten words and obviously having been driving while over the alcohol limit.
The Ledge a film which presented the men as predatory animals, for its many failings it had a determined female lead, whatever statement Find Your Friends intends to make is lost in the boozy haze as it moves into misanthropy, every shallow character, selfish, unreliable and conceited, making stupid decisions as it echoes Extremities territory and the tables are turned and the survivors have evidence that they are being targeted but opt for revenge rather than doing the right thing, helping neither themselves nor their missing friends.
Find Your Friends will be streaming on Shudder from Friday 12th June
