Want to hear more from the actors and creators of your favorite shows and films? Subscribe to The Cinema Spot on YouTube for all of our upcoming interviews!
Have you ever second-guessed your relationships? Thought that maybe your best pals may not like you as much as you thought? If not, All My Friends Hate Me will change your perspective on everything.
Invited to celebrate his birthday at his friend’s childhood country manor, Pete (Tom Stourton) is excited to reunite with his old college pals. However, when his pals return from the pub with a local stranger, Harry (Dustin Demri-Burns), things begin to take a turn for the worst.
Is Harry watching him? Why are his friends being so mean? Is Pete the problem?
Paranoid Pete & Puzzle Pieces
All My Friends Hate Me slowly turns from a typical British comedy into a psychological drama that had me questioning whether the characters were experiencing things that we [the audience] were not seeing.
In a similar fashion to The Father (in which Anthony is a massively unreliable narrator), Pete’s paranoia and anxiety have him second-guessing almost everything, from innocent jokes to uneventful days out.
Tom Stourton plays our paranoid Pete. The actor is able to capture Pete’s inner turmoil as he tries to piece together the puzzle pieces that only he can see. Stourton also co-writes the screenplay with Tom Palmer, and it’s clear that Stourton saw himself playing this role because it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing Pete.
As for Pete’s pals, well, they’re a different story entirely.
A Cast of Practically Perfect “Friends”
You’ve got Archie (Graham Dickson), Claire (Antonia Clarke), Fig (Georgina Campbell), and George (Joshua McGuire), all of whom are well off, seemingly well-intentioned, and are ready to have a great weekend away. Each friend is different in massive ways. Although, they all hold a common ground when it comes to Pete. In fact, that’s a question for the audience in itself – Do they even like him?
Each actor helps Stourton create some of the most uncomfortable, nail-biting, and occasionally cringe moments that will only baffle the audience before making them think one thing before having them change their mind for another.
The awkwardness only grows with Harry (Dustin Demri-Burns), a stranger whom Pete believes he has had a run-in with before arriving at the manor. Harry often jots things down after Pete tries to make a joke, and he will watch Pete with curious eyes. It’s almost like he’s gathering information against Pete – but for what? There’s also the question about whether he’s doing anything out of the ordinary as well because Pete’s friends don’t seem to think so. And eventually, so will you.
Demri-Burns is fantastic as the screwball local and he’ll have to you loving him then hating him and then loving him again. Among the “friends”, he is a definite standout.
Going back to the writing, All My Friends Hate to me is as if Knives Out met some fucked up version of The Breakfast Club. It’s somewhat of a conspiracy mystery set inside a posh estate with a diverse cast of characters, each with their own fully developed lives and personalities. The writing is impeccable because you can truly see and feel the history behind each character, which is only excelled further with each performance.
Some Friends Are Just Bastards
More twists and turns unravel as we reach the conclusion of the film. Despite everything and despite Pete’s behaviour and past history, I’m sorry to say that his friends are still absolute wankers. The way they go about arranging his birthday weekend and constantly berating him for such trivial things like not managing to shoot a bird when it’s his first time shooting or getting upset that he mostly talks about himself – which is annoying as hell – but it’s his birthday weekend! You could let it slide once or at least bring up the fact he’s always talking about the time he traveled to help refugees. So many things could have been avoided if they weren’t such knobs.
Pete isn’t completely innocent though because he does read into things a bit too much. This only causes more rifts to form, which in turn, creates some moments that are both cringe-inducing and nail-biting moments.
The movie however is great. Don’t get me wrong. It’s just that everyone is a dickhead, which just shows how good the actors were because I really disliked almost everyone in this film.
This film deserves an OSCAR nomination for Best Original Screenplay. However, considering that it’s a small indie film from England, it’ll likely get shut out unless it’s picked up and given a decent promotional campaign. I would say it’ll be perfect as an HBO Max, Hulu, or Netflix Original Film!
All My Friends Hate Me will have you either on the edge of your seat from the moment Pete’s party begins! And it was by far one of my favourite films at the BFI London Film Festival!
3 Comments on “London Film Festival Review: ‘All My Friends Hate Me’”