We Are Your Friends (Cinema Screening)

(spoiler free)

The trailers and promotion for We Are Your Friends promised ‘the last party of the summer’ and naturally as a massive fan of dance and electronic music I was pretty excited for this. The movie basically looked like a massive rave up and I was so cool with that, listening to this kind of music is one of my favourite things to do so throw it into a movie and that’s two of my passions in one!

If I was to compare this movie to another from this year it would be Whiplash. Similarly, as Whiplash was an awesome movie about jazz drumming, We Are Your Friends is a great film about DJing, dance and electronic music. The most crucial element of this film for me was always going to be the music, to my pleasure the tunes here were reflective of when you are out for the night and you feel like the DJ has lifted his set straight from your itunes, I loved it. I was constantly tapping my feet and nodding my head throughout the movie and I had no problem enjoying the scenes featuring extended pieces of music, I would have even liked more and longer versions of these scenes! Director Max Joseph was able to give the music character and create interesting scenes around it, one scene in particular outlines the science behind dance music and DJing. This scene was superb and I could really identify with it but apart from that I thought it was just really clever as it made the music more than simply just that.  I thought that We Are Your Friends might have been similar to a night out, you experience those highs when you and the DJ are on the same page but then you have those times of frustration when they kill the vibe with a tune you don’t like. We Are Your Friends never had those moments of frustration though as its pace was so good. This had a lot to do with the inventive ways of producing and editing certain scenes. Whether this was achieved through text on screen or animation every scene grabbed your attention and never out stayed its welcome keeping the film fresh and engaging.

There is more than music in We Are Your Friends, as the title suggests friendship is a major theme in the story. The chemistry between all of the characters was perfect, I completely bought it and really enjoyed watching them hang out, strive for more and face the struggles of life together. Due to the likable nature of the group and a great script much humour resulted so there are laughs to be had whilst watching which was an added bonus. On top of this the film has a real element of drama to it. Unfortunately some of this drama was very predictable but the film makes up for this by never fixating on these elements which was very clever as no audience wants to see a story line they have seen a thousand times played out again. The other elements were surprisingly mature and I thought added a lot to the film, I wish we’d even seen a little more of them as they really enhanced the movie. To use the comparison of Whiplash again, much like its finale here We Are Your Friends has a suitably impressive finale too. The final moments continue to build and by the end you are more than satisfied. The cast have a lot to be praised for too as I thought that this film boasted a strong collective performance from all involved. Zac Efron was convincing at all times even though he has admitted that he can’t DJ and his fellow cast members always matched him in terms of their performances.

We Are Your Friends is a must for any dance/electronic music fans, the film certainly lived up to its claims of being a party and it only took about ten minutes to pass for me to want to be out clubbing somewhere. The music is only one layer to the movie though and thats why I think it could be enjoyed by others as well not just fans of this genre of music. Humour, drama and great chemistry between characters mean that We Are Your Friends could be the surprise hit of the summer.

Rating – 9/10