MOVIE REVIEW: We Are Your Friends
We Are Your Friends is an attempt to bring the electronic dance music (EDM) culture to the screen and build an emotional narrative around it that extends just beyond the pulsing beats. PHOTO| COURTESY
What you need to know:
The surreal moment is seen through the eyes of Cole, who is high on PCP. That moment is so vivid that everything, even the paintings, come to life simultaneously with a throbbing beat.
And then the movie stalls. We Are Your Friends is not a fast-paced movie. The action takes time to build up and breaks down even before the audience gets to enjoy the few peaks in the movie.
But the relationships built between Cole and his high school friends piece the movie together and are worth sticking by and watching the movie through to the end.
The movie: We Are Your Friends
Genre: Musical Drama
Release Date: August 21, 2015
Rating: 6/10
Director: Max Joseph
Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes
Cast
Zac Efron as Cole Carter
Emily Ratajkowski as Wes Bentley as Sophie
Alex Shaffer as Squirrel
Shiloh Fernandez as Ollie
Jonny Weston as Dustin Martin
Electronic dance music fans have finally found their movie. We Are Your Friends is an attempt to bring the electronic dance music (EDM) culture to the screen and build an emotional narrative around it that extends just beyond the pulsing beats.
In this movie, Zac Efron stars as Cole, a 23-year-old guy struggling to become an EDM deejay on the California scene. Cole believes that to be a break-out star in that genre, he only needs “a laptop, some talent and one killer track”.
At one of his try-out gigs, Cole meets his mentor, James, a highly successful EDM deejay who to some is considered washed out, but still gets paid too much. James takes Cole out to an art gallery filled with dancing revellers where the whole experience morphs into a dream-like animation.
The surreal moment is seen through the eyes of Cole, who is high on PCP. That moment is so vivid that everything, even the paintings, come to life simultaneously with a throbbing beat.
And then the movie stalls. We Are Your Friends is not a fast-paced movie. The action takes time to build up and breaks down even before the audience gets to enjoy the few peaks in the movie.
But the relationships built between Cole and his high school friends piece the movie together and are worth sticking by and watching the movie through to the end.
Together, they find themselves doing odd jobs in the hopes that they will eventually and individually realise their dreams. Mason is hot-headed, Ollie is the wannabe-movie star and Squirrel is the nerd.
The movie is a bit predictable and audiences can decipher the whole plot almost half an hour into the movie through the love triangles, death and broken friendships.
We are Your Friends could be a bit more adventurous but with Sophie, James’ girlfriend in the picture, it plays out like a soap opera. Her role appears to be the catalyst that turns their relationship (James and Cole) sour with lust and betrayal.
