No character in a thriller film has ever had a good drug trip, so it’s extra hilarious when, three-quarters of the way through Shudder’s upcoming release, a well-meaning character tells the protagonist to take shrooms, insisting that “the drugs will help.”
The drugs do not help.
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So goes “Find Your Friends,” the witless first feature film from actress and writer-director Izabel Pakzad. At once excessive and lacking, this vacation fable confuses shock for substance and trauma for backstory. It is ultimately a sluggish, meandering tale buoyed entirely by one standout performance.
Blessedly, said performer is the film’s lead — Helena Howard plays Amber, a shy beauty who’s already clearly over her friends’ raucous ways when the film opens. When her four college pals (played by Bella Thorne, Zión Moreno, Chloe Cherry, and Sophia Ali) abandon her to score with a stranger during a yacht party, and the guy rapes Amber, her screws start to loosen. Between the rape, Amber’s ignorant friends, a plan to trip in the desert, and a series of leering, increasingly violent men, you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
Pakzad keeps Amber’s inner turmoil at a slow simmer for much of the film’s runtime. On the one hand, that gives Howard the chance to do what she does best — convey complex, subtle shifts in emotion with nothing but her face. (She was a revelation when she made her film debut as a teenager in “Madeline’s Madeline,” and she’s still incredible nearly ten years later.) On the other hand, it doesn’t result in a particularly thrilling thriller. Amber’s interiority is interesting because Howard makes it interesting, but other than that, we don’t have much to go on. She’s the smartest of the group, apparently, and interested in becoming a career academic. We don’t know anything about her past, and Pakzad certainly doesn’t give any indication that she might eventually turn violent — though she does, with gusto.
“Find Your Friends” is also notably lacking in compelling villains — unless you count all men, everywhere, and alcohol. Of course, it’s possible to compellingly portray the ills of party culture and vulnerabilities of young women (see: Molly Manning Walker’s “How to Have Sex”), but this movie does not have the depth or nuance required to do so. The men are essentially interchangeable — literally, two of them look so alike that you’ll find yourself trawling IMDb — and all bizarrely violent. The locals have been yanked right from “Deliverance.” Who knew there were so many violent, misogynistic hicks in the towns around Joshua Tree, or that they roam in packs?
The film’s needlessly bloody end is cynical rather than poignant. Like most rape-revenge movies, “Find Your Friends” is more interested in turning its heroine into an anti-hero than it is in establishing her as a living, breathing person. Consequently, everything that happens to Amber — including her depicted assault — feels symbolic and hollow. Pakzad is clearly putting all of these preternaturally beautiful, concerningly thin women through hell to make a statement, but it’s not a meaningful one. Men, drugs, and alcohol can victimize young women, lower their inhibitions, and violence can beget more violence. Seeing Gaspar Noé and James Franco’s names appear in the Special Thanks section of this film’s credits is like seeing your untrained dog next to a pissed-upon rug. Of course, they’re here, at the corner of “Spring Breakers” Street and “Irreversible” Avenue, but it’s still disappointing to see them.
“Find My Friends” premieres on Shudder on Friday, June 12.
