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A self-involved 31-year-old’s birthday weekend goes to hell when he grows paranoid that his school pals are attempting to exchange him.
A scary-funny British satire that cringes in horror on the all too acquainted type of prosperous, over-educated millennials who’re one way or the other each self-obsessed and deeply ashamed of themselves on the similar time, Andrew Gaynord’s queasily entertaining “All My Buddies Hate Me” unpacks a weekend in Devon right into a bitter little picnic of recent discomfort.
Its story hinges on a easy notion concerning the unnatural forces that may compel a 31-year-old neurotic like Pete (co-writer Tom Stourton) to maintain even his most poisonous school friendships on life assist: He’s mortified concerning the man he was, however the one individuals who can let him off the hook are those who knew him again then. They’re the one ones who would possibly be capable of admire how a lot he’s modified. So whereas Pete is lots amped up for the agricultural getaway that his outdated friends have deliberate for his birthday — solely actual ’90s children will absolutely perceive how humorous it’s when he blasts “Sandstorm” by Darude to get the juices flowing — his pleasure isn’t essentially owed to the promise of reliving his glory days.
Quite the opposite, Pete is hellbent on displaying everybody how far he’s come.
As soon as the captain of the ingesting time at a complicated college filled with privileged ne’er do wells identical to him, our boy has spent the previous few years working with refugees, relationship a middle-class northern woman, and speaking about each of these issues advert nauseum. Pete’s game-plan for the reunion couldn’t be easier. Till, that’s, his late-arriving friends make a wierd — and presumably sinister — new buddy on the native pub. The difficulty with Harry (Dustin Demri-Burns) is that he’s the lifetime of the occasion and all of the enjoyable Pete was. He’s an existential risk. And whereas Pete could also be itching to undertake a extra grownup persona, the one factor worse than not having the ability to escape how a lot you hate your self is the gnawing suspicion that your whole pals would possibly hate you too.
Impressed by a rush of paranoia that Stourton as soon as skilled at a marriage the place he felt unwelcome, “All My Buddies Hate Me” successfully splits the distinction between Ruben Östlund and Ben Wheatley because it pinballs between squirmy laughs and sly horrors. Is Harry — all the time scribbling in his little pocket book and watching individuals whereas they sleep — actually making an attempt to exchange Pete’s function within the group and weasel his means right into a richer social stratum, or has Pete simply wound himself into somebody who’s forgotten methods to take a joke? Whereas the reply to that query in the end proves to be a bit underwhelming, there’s nonetheless nice schadenfreude available in watching a man with none actual issues in his life gaslight himself into believing that the world is out to get him.
Which isn’t essentially to say that Pete isn’t in any hazard, or that he’s off his rocker to marvel if individuals could not have his greatest pursuits at coronary heart. For one factor, there’s a whole lot of menace wafting off the native sorts, beginning with the homeless man whose canine terrorizes Pete on his option to the home, and persevering with with the craggy-faced groundskeeper whose salt of the earth demeanor is so intense that it might probably’t assist however make Pete really feel like a pretentious fraud (the element that Pete, regardless of all the time prattling on about his work with refugees, is of course suspicious and/or afraid of all of the movie’s much less privileged characters epitomizes the sharp ironies of the script that Stourton wrote together with his longtime comedy companion Tom Palmer). For an additional, Pete’s pals are form of assholes.
Archie (Graham Dickson) is a wealthy drug addict who looks as if he simply stumbled out of “The Guidelines of Attraction,” and gained’t shut up about his really abysmal thought for a brand new app. George (“Lovesick” actor Joshua McGuire) is a good bit softer, however even he doesn’t see the hurt in busting Pete’s chops. It’s George who retains yammering on about how Claire (Antonia Clarke) remains to be in love with Pete, and it’s George — Pete is satisfied — who troubles the water by telling Claire that Pete is about to ask his absent girlfriend to marry him.
George’s girlfriend Fig (Georgina Campbell) is gorgeous, refined, and seems to be the least hostile of the bunch, and but she’s the one who ends the primary night time by callously telling Pete that he’s rubbing everybody the incorrect means. After which there’s Harry, whose infantile jokes are so humorous to everybody else that Pete can’t assist however really feel like his oldest pals have all been body-snatched throughout their time aside; Pete is rarely extra sympathetic than when he ends a scene by digesting what simply occurred with a baffled “fucking wut?” And but, that rising sense of confusion begins to sprout in Pete’s thoughts, step by step overtaking his logic.
Amongst different issues, Gaynord’s movie shrewdly understands how somebody might be so preoccupied with the query of “do my pals nonetheless like me?” that they by no means cease to contemplate “do I nonetheless like my pals?” Narcissism doesn’t all the time necessitate conceitedness — generally it simply results in paranoia. Or perhaps Pete isn’t loopy to think about that Harry may be as much as one thing. Perhaps he’s not delusional to suppose that Harry is aware of the darkest chambers of his coronary heart too properly to be an ideal stranger.
As “All My Buddies Hate Me” teeters nearer to the brink of a full-on psychic collapse and the occasion weekend turns into an outright crucible for the person Pete’s molded himself into, the severity of Gaynord’s route begins to lose its cheek; its refined British stiffness hardens into one thing extra akin to “The Shining.” There’s clear ability and admirable restraint to how the movie pulls taut sufficient to assist its tightrope stroll of a finale, however — as tends to occur in subjectively advised tales about individuals who query the fact of their environment — “All My Buddies Hate Me” is so preoccupied with believable deniability and sustaining its stability that it might probably’t afford to go too onerous in any route.
The film’s choice for nausea over terror explains why it’s by no means notably scary, however even its most skin-crawling moments of social agony really feel like they’re holding one thing again. In a movie that thrives off the tense disconnect between the inanity of Pete’s fears and the depth with which they’re felt, it’s a missed alternative that Gaynord and his Toms uncared for to stretch issues a number of levels additional. And but, sharp characterizations and a genteel riot of fine-tuned performances discover ample rewards in all of this awkwardness. And the movie’s occasional concessions aren’t sufficient to melt the blow of its most bruising punchline: Folks can get into some fairly severe bother in the event that they overlook methods to chuckle at themselves.
Grade: B
“All My Buddies Hate Me” is now enjoying in theaters, and shall be obtainable on VOD beginning Friday, March 25.