We Are Your Friends
Directed by: Max Joseph
Written by: Max Joseph and Meaghan Oppenheimer - Story by Richard Silverman
Starring: Zac Efron, Emily Ratajkowski, Jonny Weston, Shiloh Fernandez, Alex Shaffer, Wes Bentley, Jon Bernthal, Alicia Coppola
Drama/Music/Romance - 96 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl 27 Aug 2015
Written by: Max Joseph and Meaghan Oppenheimer - Story by Richard Silverman
Starring: Zac Efron, Emily Ratajkowski, Jonny Weston, Shiloh Fernandez, Alex Shaffer, Wes Bentley, Jon Bernthal, Alicia Coppola
Drama/Music/Romance - 96 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl 27 Aug 2015
“You’re not even a real person until you’re 27.” The elder statesman character, a whopping 40 years old, drops this knowledge nugget on the film’s youth as they flail around the San Fernando Valley finding themselves. Flailing may be a tad generous as a descriptor as the four gentlemen in their young 20s alternate their time promoting a dance club to local sorority girls, pitching sketchy foreclosure debt consolidation using boiler room tactics, and dreaming of creating the next app which will make them billionaires. None of them know how to code or have any ideas to kick around, but details as trivial as that are ignored as they dream of becoming kings of Los Angeles. We Are Your Friends has the feel of a plucky lost generation without a vector until they stumble into a one in a million situation, but it winds up being a bit smarter than that. The story of the little DJ that could shows remarkable visual creativity from director Max Joseph and avoids just enough tried and true coming of age clichés to provide a genuinely good time in the theater.
I’ve seen We Are Your Friends compared to Saturday Night Fever, Cocktail, and All About Eve, but if we are going to sit around lobbing thievery accusations, I say it ‘borrows’ most from Good Will Hunting. There are four males in their early 20s each with their own unique distinguishing characteristic so we can pick them out of the lineup. Cole (Zac Efron, 2014's Neighbors) is the one with talent and has a ticket out of his lowly circumstances if he works hard and the stars align. Mason (Jonny Weston, 2015's Insurgent) is the skinhead borderline psychopath. Ollie (Shiloh Fernandez, 2013's Evil Dead) is the guy who continues to wear a leather jacket in the dead of summer and the drug dealer of the bunch while Squirrel (Alex Shaffer) is the more contemplative soul wondering what it all means. The boys are from the wrong side of the tracks, are always ready for a fight, and the only one with a visible love interest is Cole. All very Good Will Huntingish.
I’ve seen We Are Your Friends compared to Saturday Night Fever, Cocktail, and All About Eve, but if we are going to sit around lobbing thievery accusations, I say it ‘borrows’ most from Good Will Hunting. There are four males in their early 20s each with their own unique distinguishing characteristic so we can pick them out of the lineup. Cole (Zac Efron, 2014's Neighbors) is the one with talent and has a ticket out of his lowly circumstances if he works hard and the stars align. Mason (Jonny Weston, 2015's Insurgent) is the skinhead borderline psychopath. Ollie (Shiloh Fernandez, 2013's Evil Dead) is the guy who continues to wear a leather jacket in the dead of summer and the drug dealer of the bunch while Squirrel (Alex Shaffer) is the more contemplative soul wondering what it all means. The boys are from the wrong side of the tracks, are always ready for a fight, and the only one with a visible love interest is Cole. All very Good Will Huntingish.
Cole is smitten with Sophie (Emily Ratajkowski, 2014's Gone Girl) whose pumped up lips are as big as her ability to just sit back and draw every single eye in the room to her. The problem? Sophie is superstar DJ James Reed’s (Wes Bentley, 2012's The Hunger Games) girlfriend/assistant. For murky reasons, James takes on Cole as a project becoming a cross between a mentor, life coach, and drinking buddy. The love triangle is the weaker third of the film’s plot juxtaposed with the tunes and the boys from the hood. Cole and Sophie spark a convincing chemistry and choosing between the girl and the career becomes quite the quandary for young Cole. Emily Ratajkowski was the cause of the major strife in this year’s Entourage movie and all she had to do was show up at a party. She is involved in similar melodrama here but this time is a not so innocent party.
The music, on the other hand, is the film’s bread and butter. Some of the best montages I’ve seen in a long time follow along with Cole’s descriptions of how to be a DJ. While Cole narrates facts about beats per minute and how it corresponds to the human body, artwork and diagrams jump around the screen producing a phenomenal effect showcasing electronic music’s association with the circulatory system. Whether or not it is true doesn’t matter. There is another amusing montage when Cole unknowingly imbibes some PCP which follows a more psychedelic pattern. Cinematographer Brett Pawlak’s camera frequently stares at the back of Efran’s headphoned cranium as he hunches over his laptop searching for the perfect sound. For the older folks in the audience, a moment of instruction: A 2015 DJ is not someone who arranges a radio playlist; rather, it is an artist whose medium is the MacBook Pro and sound editing software mixing, matching, and morphing anomalous sounds into music.
The grass roots friends back at the homestead are a bit more predictable. High school is long over, everybody skipped college, and the rote club promotion gig is a diminishing return losing its luster. Not all of the gang takes as readily to the underhanded foreclosure gimmick cold calling the financially distressed as others do. When Cole witnesses firsthand the consequences of his actions, he learns he may not have the stomach to chase the easy money. The boys club is growing apart producing frustration, distractions, and allegations of disloyalty; all standard tenets when some members glimpse possible futures that differ from their adolescent dreams.
After the film, there will be no new truths to take away as you leave the theater. You probably will not gain a greater appreciation for electronic music than what you walk in with but learning the basics about the art and science of techno creation was an entertaining way for me to spend about two hours of my life. Efron ably carries the film and comes off far less obnoxious than his frat boy persona in 2014’s Neighbors. Cole and that particular frat boy president probably would not get along very well. Both characters drink and smoke their fair share, but Cole has ambition and quests for the purity of artistic achievement; perhaps he is hunting for good will?
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