Having My Friends Disapprove of Me is Anxiety-Provoking, But in a Positive Manner –

Friendships, like all things in life, are seasonal. Friends that you got on with in university might not be the friends you still keep, and when you’ve not seen a group of friends for years, things can awkward when you do finally meet up. This is the premise of Andrew Gaynord’s All My Friends Hate Me. Pete’s (Tom Stourton) uni friends have organised a birthday celebration in his honour, and these are friends he hasn’t seen in a while. As he makes the long drive down, Pete’s excited – he can’t wait for the reunion and the chance to see all friends again.

But things aren’t what he expects when he gets there. Firstly, the house is completely empty, and he has to wait hours before they show up. Secondly, there’s this new guy Harry (Dustin Demri-Burns), and suddenly, Pete isn’t at the centre of things anymore. Instead, he seems to be on the receiving end of all these little jabs his friends are dishing out. It doesn’t help that one of his friends actually calls him out about how poorly he’s performing at all these festivities, especially when Pete hasn’t been doing any of this intentionally.

The film is paced so perfectly, the tension escalating incrementally as we make our way through the film. The viewer will feel so anxious for Pete, and there’s this desire to run things forward just to see if he survives this social disaster. Having been at large social gatherings where I knew no one but the host, I could relate so much to Pete’s increasing sense of paranoia. After each botched encounter, he wonders to himself if he’s overthinking or if there’s some resentment under the surface.

Reunions also lead you to question your previous perceptions about self and the people you know. Pete’s version of self is that he’s the life of the party, only it seems his friends have a different idea, which makes everything so confusing. Sometimes we don’t realise how much time can change things. Like I said, friendship is seasonal, and while Pete has walked away from the ‘drugs and party’ life, some of his friends are still very much into it. In his conversations with various friends in the group, you can see the gap that time has brought about. None of these conversations are easy or effortless, and it becomes abundantly clear that Pete doesn’t really know any of them anymore.

It can feel so disconcerting to think you belong, only to realise that you don’t. To make matters worse, his friends organise activities they think he’d like, and none of them turn out to be any fun at all. The disconnect is on both sides: Pete doesn’t know them, and they don’t know him either. It’s harder for Pete, since he’s been the one who’s left the area and gone to a different part of the country, while the rest of them are all still connected in some way. It’s hilarious because Pete’s girlfriend Sonia (Charly Clive) actually hits it off with the gang, and it seems like she’s inducting him instead of the other way around.

We often hold on to friendships that no longer make sense because we’re driven by a kind of nostalgia, scared to lose the people we used to be. There’s also the fear of cutting ties to the point that you have no one. But sometimes, the brave thing to do is just walk away, instead of trying to force into existence what doesn’t make sense anymore.

Review screener provided.

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