What if a weekend away that was meant to be fun actually felt increasingly closer to nightmarish? That is the central premise of All My Friends Hate Me, the debut film from writing duo Tom Palmer and Tom Stourton, which expertly picks away at millennial self-consciousness and social anxiety to lay bare the neuroses of a generation.
Pete, played by Stourton, goes off to spend an ostensively enjoyable time celebrating his 31st birthday and catching up with old university friends he hasn’t seen for a few years at one of their impressive ancestral Gothic country piles. The reality soon — inevitably — begins to diverge from the fantasies Pete had imagined of reliving his halcyon days, as the birthday boy become an outcast, and the group is joined by a disquieting character they pick up in a local pub. Soon, Pete is questioning not just his friendships but his entire sense of self. The end result is a deftly crafted film that cleverly straddles genres, exploring the darkness of social dynamics and shared memories.
