Without any forethought, fanfare or even a trailer, I fell into the British Film Institute (BFI) funded “All My Friends Hate Me” purely on the strength of the film’s title and movie poster above, and very pleasingly, this is what I found:
“Pete” (Tom Stourton) Also known as “Skippy” (my boyhood nickname) and known as such by the small gang of University friends he used to lead or skipper on their regular drunken japes, jaunts and nights out. Firmly seen as “one of the funniest people on the planet”, Pete has invited his old friends to a birthday extravaganza at a remote and luxurious Manor House and despite the surreal and bizarre occurrences he collides with on his error strewn journey, he arrives in the greatest and highest of possible spirits. The years since leaving University have been incredibly fruitful and life affirming for Pete as he’s undertaken charity work with under privileged children and on returning, fallen into both love and a long term serious relationship with “Sonia” (Charly Clive). Now seemingly in both the prime and happiest period of his life, Pete cannot wait as he expectantly awaits the arrival of University friends George, Fig, Archie and Claire but, they also arrive from the pub with a new found friend Harry, and the magnificent Christopher Fairbank is, well, Christopher Fairbank as he sets the tone for a quirky, off kilter, acidic comedy that brilliantly trips the line of pointed, awkward comedy and where nothing is what it appears to be, least of all the friends who finally appear for the long awaited birthday celebrations.
I’ll congratulate and compliment the accomplishments of the writers (Tom Stourton and Tom Palmer) as well as director Andrew Gaynord and the remainder of the small cast I’ll be expanding upon shortly, and in three distinct ways:
(1) The line of awkward comedy the film trips is a fine one, a narrow one, a Ricky Gervais type line if you will, and they succeed, in the main, magnificently. It’s vinegar sour, direct, awkward, crushing, deeply black and, as the film reaches its denouement, just plain horrible, giving rise to Pete’s exhausted and resigned “Wow. This is horrible, actually”. And it is. In spades, and more crucially, there is not an ounce of sympathy or empathy to be had from his friends around the room. But it is funny. There are call backs. The abrupt change of perspective, whilst not surprising, is jarring and awkward, and anyway, can’t you take a joke?
(2) Nothing is what it seems and this is perfectly encapsulated by the Christopher Fairbank character of “Norman”. Off kilter again and typically deadpan, his wraith like character introduces the audience to the strange collection to come, and a small gaggle of characters I believed to be the imaginings of Pete’s mind and no longer earthly beings. Every character surely couldn’t be this cold, dry, twisted and lacking in human warmth?
They were all best friends with the Skipper weren’t they!
Boy how they’ve changed!
Or have they?
(3) So they’re not dead or the imaginings of the birthday boy’s mind!
So who are these characters?
Perfectly in keeping with the surreal and strange nature of this acidic comedy, the chief protagonist and stick with which to metaphorically beat Pete with is “Harry” (Dustin Demri-Burns), the new found friend from the local pub who is now firmly in place for the duration of the birthday weekend whether Pete likes it or not. “Claire” (Antonia Clarke) had a fling and love affair with Pete in their University days and seemingly hasn’t entirely given up on the flame of their love, whilst two of Pete’s other friends “George” (Joshua McGuire) and “Fig” (Georgina Campbell) are now a happily married post University couple. Whilst Pete exclaims to Claire, George and Fig that Harry is ganging up on him and “turning you against me”, it seems his only friend among old friends is “Archie” (Graham Dickson) but Archie is permanently high on cocaine and in a sleep deprived haze. Pete may be a little irritable after the early events of the first night and early morning, but why does everyone, his oldest friends or especially his newest of enemies, hate him so?
Who’s spreading rumours? Why don’t they interact with him? Why do they always cut him short in conversations?
More plainly, who are these strangers?
The fourth reason I loved this horribly brilliant comedy is for the one true piece of jarring horror that arrives from nowhere and perfectly in keeping with a film that seems to continually hit you from nowhere and a film that I never stopped musing on why was the comedy so jarringly sharp, awkward, cringe-worthy, and to what ends?
The highest compliment I can pay this film is that my original left field thoughts were wildly inaccurate yet perfectly rational for a wildly irrational and horribly funny film that left me constantly trying to piece the puzzle together whilst never discounting my original thesis however wildly inaccurate.
A very interesting and highly recommended film.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.