We Are Your Friends review

An aspiring DJ in LA tries to make it in the business with some help from an older mentor.

We Are Your Friends stars Zac Efron as a young kid from the wrong side of the Hollywood sign who wants to make it in electronic music.

He finds a mentor in the older Wes Bentley, meets a girl played by Emily Ratajkowski and parties with his friends.

The stage is set for a music-driven version of a sports movie but things aren’t quite what they seem.

While there’s nothing really revolutionary going on here, there are enough quirks on the standard formula that is almost seems fresh.

A lot of that is down to the spry direction by documentarian and Catfish TV show host Max Joseph.

There’s a real pace to the editing and a sense of purpose about each and every frame, even when the plot is dithering.

There are also some welcome flights of fancy, with a drug trip detailed in startling rotoscoped shapes and colours.

And there’s a standout sequence where the process of enthralling a dance crowd is detailed, complete with on screen diagrams, CG heartbeats and a thudding baseline which brings the theory into practise in a wall of sound.

Efron continues his slow creep towards becoming an interesting leading man.

He’s less twinkly and winky here than he was in Bad Neighbours and does his best to sell the drama while being effortlessly charming.

Bentley has had a run of playing less than memorable villains in shows like Ghost Rider and The Hunger Games but he’s well cast here and benefits from Joseph and Meaghan Oppenheimer’s well-wrought script.

And Ratajkowski does a good job too, while also benefitting from being almost impossibly good looking.

There are plotting problems aplenty here, mainly the fact that Efron’s journey and his life with his childhood friends never really feels believable.

And there’s a real lack of clarity on the overall message – is it about persevering? Friendship? Love? Dance music and very attractive people?

For me, Joseph’s direction and style were enough to make me forget about these issues and be borne along by the energy of the piece, and no doubt that will also work for plenty of people in the audience.

And just as many will find the film totally forgettable and bland.

Such is art.

3.5/5