ANYONE who has watched even one episode of hit TV show The Inbetweeners, or its spin-off movies, will know what to expect from this similarly laddish comedy directed by the franchise’s co-creator Iain Thomas.
It stars Joe Thomas as Nick, a recent graduate who falls into a depressed exile after his long-time girlfriend Caitlin (Hannah Tointon) dumps him during graduation.
To get him out of his stupor, his best friend Shane (Hammed Animashaun) convinces him to make use of expensive festival tickets they bought. The plan is to forget his break-up and have one last good time before they have to grow up and move on. Mayhem dutifully ensues.
On the one hand, you miss the group dynamic from the show that made the director and the star’s name; you sometimes feel like the other three are going to wander in randomly – Nick might as well have “from the creator of The Inbetweeners” tattooed on his forehead as one of his drunken festival exploits.
On the other hand, Thomas, playing a different but not entirely dissimilar character to the one from that franchise, gets to show off his talent for slapstick and well-timed reactions to the madness going on around him. Putting it plainly, he’s not afraid to make himself look like a complete idiot. Animashaun goes some ways to making up for that lost group camaraderie as Nick’s friend Shane, who brings a much more carefree and affable vibe as well as acting like a welcome audience conduit when he calls out Nick’s self-centred behaviour.
Claudia O’Doherty also has a good role as Amy, an excitable and loquacious festival veteran travelling on her own for reasons that are revealed later on. She helps give the story a glimmer of emotion amongst the kind of craziness which speaks to the film’s spot-on observations about the festival experience.
It does feel rather sitcom-like at times as Nick wanders throughout the festival, meeting various colourful folk, many of whom are cameos from some famous faces of the British comedy scene. And the “will he get the girl?” subplot that drives much of Nick’s motivation feels a little recycled. But he plays that sort of thing well, pitching the character between charmingly awkward and annoyingly in need of finally growing up.
Despite its flaws, the film mostly hits the mark where it counts. An escalating series of set-pieces – from cringeworthy sexual encounters in the woods to an unwanted body piercing – play the crude shock value card with swaggering confidence, while there’s just enough sprinkling of weirdness and endearing sweetness to balance things out.
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