We Are Your Friends (2015)
Certified: 15
Duration: 96 minutes
Directed by: Max Joseph
Starring: Zac Efron, Emily Ratajkowski, Shiloh Fernandez, Alex Shaffer, Jonny Weston, Wes Bentley, Joey Rudman, Jon Bernthal, Vanessa Lengies
KRS Releasing Ltd
Zac Efron is Cole, a young man who aspires to making it big as a deejay, and he wants Los Angeles to dance to his beat.
He is friends with Mason (Jonny Weston), Alex (Alex Shaffer) and Ollie (Shiloh Fernandez), who have their own dreams. They all work at a firm run by Paige (Jon Bernthal), who is very much a business shark.
Cole meets James Read (Wes Bentley), who is one of the top Los Angeles deejays and has alcohol issues. He takes Cole under his wing. This is how he meets Sophie (Emily Ratajkowski), James’s employee and fiancée.
At one point Cole and Sophie become too close for comfort, thus threatening the relationship Cole has with James. This could also put an end to Cole’s dream of becoming a top deejay.
The movie has some interesting and important things to say about youth. It does not have much depth but manages to capture a groove and beat that will appeal to the young generation.
Director Max Joseph adopts a visual look to his shooting that gives a shine to his characters and the relationships they entwine in. It also gives his movie a sense of energy, a sense of living in the here and now that is further emphasised by the setting of the film.
The running theme is a sort of Saturday Night Fever for modern times, with Efron as a deejay rather than a dancer like John Travolta, with friends on one side wanting his commitment and the older and more experienced mentor which inevitably turns sour.
At its core, the movie moves to the beat of electronic dance music and meshes the visuals and the music together in a music video manner.
Efron is his usual charming and confident self. At the start of the film he seems a bit lost by his character’s lifestyle, but slowly as the film evolves, his characterisation takes hold and he embodies his role well.
Bentley catapults himself into his character with intense vigour. The film also benefits from excellent supporting turnouts, with Jonny Weston especially making an impression. More screen time for his character would have been welcome.
Overall, We Are Your Friends is not reinventing the wheel, but in its direction, groove and characters it manages to provide a different insight into the world of youths.
It also gives different shades to the term ‘millennial angst’ that has been bandied around so aimlessly but here seems to find a natural home.