The Festival

Dir: Iain Morris

2018

**

Don’t let the fact that Iain Morris is the director and Joe Thomas is the lead character fool you into thinking this a film anywhere near as good as The Inbetweeners because it’s not. In fact, it’s a far cry from The Inbetweeners, it’s like a bastard cousin twice removed, who might try to blag a backstage pass because he is distantly related. I genuinely like all four of the Inbetweeners but I would argue that Joe Thomas is the least talented, although he carries the weight of this film on his shoulders admirably. However, it is not quite enough and his performance comes across as quite desperate at times. Hammed Animashaun and Claudia O'Doherty are likable enough in their supporting roles but unfortunately for them they are forced to compete with other lesser characters. The producers managed to bag Jemaine Clement, Noel Fielding and Nick Frost in supporting roles but absolutely squandered their talents. The story suffers a whole host of problems, having a back story being the biggest issue. I’m not sure why three friends couldn’t have just attended a music festival for the first time and had an adventure, without the whole university/ex-girlfriend plot-line that just didn’t work. I could have sworn Joe Thomas called Hannah Tointon Carli at one point, and he may as well have, although the pair also played girlfriend and boyfriend in The Inbetweeners’ second series. It is a tired format and I wonder why Thomas would want to type-cast himself in such a way. It all comes down to the terrible script. Co-writers Keith Akushie and Joe Parham are probably best known for Siblings, a show I couldn’t get into - Akushie also wrote Fresh Meat which I have to admit I hated. All of their jokes are old and have been explored before and far more successfully. It seems startlingly obvious that neither writer has ever been to an English music festival either, another one of the film’s major issues. The Inbetweeners worked brilliantly because it was easy to relate to. I went to an English state school decades before The Inbetweeners but certain aspects of school life clearly remained the same, the writers tapped into this and made a very honest and universally understood comedy. Sure it was juvenile but it is probably the best and truest representation of British kids who are post-puberty but pre-adulthood. The Festival has none of that charm or realism, relying purely on contrived scenarios, unrealistic (and uninteresting) characters and tired clichés. Anyone who has been to a British festival could write a more interesting film without making up stories of Druids bumming goats in bizarre wedding rituals, crowd-forced strip teases and impersonating a super-star DJ on stage. It is fair to say festivals are not what they were when I first attended them but they don’t look like this and I’m pretty sure they still involve music – unlike the bulk of the film. The jokes are so tired and forced I believe only a goldfish would find them all funny. I think I tittered twice but for the most part I was bored, a little frustrated and bitterly disappointed. I didn’t recognise it as anything other than the sort of rubbish I thought people had stopped making now that The Inbetweeners had shown the way. The only thing I liked about it was the thought that by now Joe Thomas has probably met up with his Inbetweeners co-stars and they have all probably ripped it out of him for making such a terrible film. A nice thought that almost makes the film worthwhile.