Mark Reviews Movies: ALL MY FRIENDS HATE ME

All My Friends Hate Me, Super LTD

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 10, 2022

The central gag of Tom Palmer and star Tom Stourton's screenplay for All My Friends Hate Me might have worked, if either the only jerk was the protagonist or the whole bunch of his friends were awful. Here, though, we get an awkward social comedy and low-key thriller about a guy who's convinced his friends and one apparent stranger can't stand him and might be out to get him in some way, and it's neither particularly funny nor especially suspenseful. Blame the terrible friends for the former and the main character for the latter.

The premise sees Pete (Stourton) re-uniting with his college friends after some years of separation. It's his 31st birthday, and George (Joshua McGuire) has set up a weekend bash at his family's manor in the country. All of Pete's friends come from wealth, although he has since abandoned that lifestyle to volunteer at a refugee camp and date the far more down-to-earth Sonia (Charly Clive).

He speaks fondly of the crew and his role as the "skipper of the party,", but after getting lost on the road and encountering a pair of odd locals (One is sleeping in a car and chases after him, and the other plays a game of delaying directions with him), all of his pals seem to have started the partying on their own just fine. Pete arrives at an empty mansion, waits away most of the day, and, when his friends finally return from a trip to the pub, lies to them that it's only been a short wait. It's a bad start, but the lengthy festivities only get worse.

The old gang is made up of George, his wife Fig (Georgina Campbell), Archie (Graham Dickson), and Claire (Antonia Clarke), with whom Pete had an on-and-off romance. Everyone is careful about that information, because Claire attempted suicide just before Pete went off on his philanthropy trip.

The "wild card"—an old tradition the group would have of picking up strangers on their nights out—is Harry (Dustin Demri-Burns), who starts digging into Pete from the start, and why does he take notes whenever the guest of honor says certain things? Is that dirty car—the one in which Pete found the sleeping man—his? Everyone seems to like Harry and laugh at all his jokes, especially when they're aimed at Pete, and surely, this means something about how all of them feel about Pete.

That's the extent of the plot, as the screenwriters and director Andrew Gaynord are far more concerned with establishing and maintaining an air of paranoia about the friends, Harry's intentions, and what the real purpose of this belated get-together could actually be. Rumors and gossip—some of it, such as Pete's plans to propose to Sonia and the worry about Claire learning this, started by our protagonist—are spread to everyone by an unknown party or parties. Harry continues to tease and seemingly intimidate Pete publicly and in private, and someone seems to have stolen and/or replaced the herbal anxiety medication he keeps in his toiletry bag.

Since the whole of the story is seen exclusively from Pete's perspective, the question of what's real and what's merely a figment of his insecure imagination becomes the most important one here. To be sure, Harry is a nuisance, whether or not Pete is taking the stranger's jibes too personally, and Archie is a privileged ass, filled with casual contempt for his social "lessers" and so irresponsible with a shotgun that it's a wonder he hasn't killed anyone yet (at least of which we or anyone else knows). Even George, with whom Pete has the closest and friendliest relationship, is to be suspected every so often, and if there's anything to say about the one-unfortunate-note characterization of Claire and the presence of Fig, it's that they're the only, limited bright spots of sympathy and decency to found in this story.

The same can't be said of Pete, though. He's a bore in his best moments, working too hard to fit in, and a self-involved guy, constantly bringing up his work with refugees as if to announce he's a compassionate person, filled with passive-aggressive irritation in his worst. While that's at least part of the point of Palmer and Stourton's screenplay (as well as the latter's performance), it's increasingly difficult to find much connection to this character as the potential victim of some mysterious and elaborate scheme—just as it's difficult to laugh at the possibility that Pete is blowing the words and behavior of those around him out of proportion, when a good number of them are pretty petty, irritating, or worse.

As a result, the payoff to the understated thriller of paranoia leaves us with a few too many questions, since the filmmakers only see it as a game to play on their protagonist. Meanwhile, the real core of All My Friends Hate Me is its dark humor and the darker implications of what kind of friends and people, especially Pete, these characters really are. The joke should be on them (The final, open-to-interpretation scene suggests it still might be on one in particular), but ultimately, there simply isn't much reason to laugh.

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