Here’s a film that’s hoping you’re grading on a curve. Sure, nothing eventful or memorable happens, and it has no ideas, nor sparks any genuine emotional response other than “meh,” but it’s probably high quality by student film standards.
In short: two estranged “Fwends” reunite for a weekend in Melbourne only to discover maybe they weren’t such good Fwends after all. That’s it. That’s your movie. They meet at a train station. They talk about their shitty lives. They wander around Melbourne all night as if adventure simply happens by mere presence. This is not a bad-spirited or evil film, but it’s hard to sympathize with either lead, and there are only two people in the cast, it seems.
Em (co-writer Emmanuelle Mattana) is a young lawyer going nowhere in her firm. Jessie co-writer (Melissa Gan) is a drifter in training. That’s not quite fair. Jessie is a future cat lady in training. These two spend a day walking around the city, getting lost, and then realizing they’ve also lost keys, they wander around some more. If one of these two were a go-getter or even an idiot, this could have been a better film; at that rate, they might have adventures. But both women seem to be playing to our sympathies as if this film is one giant collective therapy session.
I want to say nothing happens, but that’s not quite true. These two take drugs at some point and go to a party that neither enjoys. Their greatest adventures happen in an arboretum, not that they’re having
adventures, it’s just that the cinematography is friendlier near plants. Both of these women seem like the kind of person you’d meet at a party, exchange a two-minute conversation, and decide, “Well, I’m not going home with you and you’re not going home with me. Let’s move on.” And moving on is exactly how I want to treat this film.
I feel sorry for Fwends. [And please stop making me write that awful title.] Much as I didn’t like it, I’m sure that when it gets bashed by people like me, it will start with generation-baiting arguments. Yeah, there were three people in charge of making this film, and I would bet that all them are about half my age. I am sympathetic to kids putting themselves out there. It takes balls to make a movie, to insist you have something to say, and make your own forum for saying it. And this is the problem – for all I want to hear the voices of these young women, I don’t feel they did have a lot to say. The closest they came was indulging in the #MeToo movement, citing sexual harassment at work, but that storyline faded as quickly as it arose, leaving the audience with no choice but to abandon it as well. If you aren’t going to cry, “Harassment!” why bring it up?
Two young women meet up in the city
And go over how their lives are both shitty
The wander around
Get lost and found
And pretend their conversations are witty
Not Rated, 92 Minutes
Director: Sophie Somerville
Writer: Melissa Gan, Emmanuelle Mattana, Sophie Somerville
Genre: Movies that make you wish you were watching other movies
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The director’s mother
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: My mother
