A One Mann’s Movies review of “Fwends” (From the 2025 London Film Festival). (2025, 2*, ’15’).
Oh dear. My least favourite film of the LFF press pre-week. I was sharing this screening with Mike Leigh, but I sadly didn’t get to speak to him afterwards to find out what he thought of this one. But I’m afraid “Fwends” (which looks like it might have the alternative title “Fwends Forever”) singularly failed to float my boat.
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
Old friends Em (Emmanuelle Mattana) and Jessie (Melissa Gan) reconnect for a weekend in Melbourne. Both women have something to whinge about…. and they do.
Certification:
UK: NR; US: NR. (The film has not yet been rated by the BBFC but I would expect it to be a ’15’ for strong language and drug-taking scenes.)
Talent:
Starring: Emmanuelle Mattana, Melissa Gan.
Directed by: Sophie Somerville.
Written by: Melissa Gan, Emmanuelle Mattana & Sophie Somerville.
Running Time: 1h 32m.
Summary:
Positives:
- There are some impressive long-distance tracking shots of the two walking through the city.
- Some of the kaleidoscopic drug-taking scenes are quirky and amusing.
Negatives:
- Much of the dialogue feels improvised and is supposed to be clever, but…
Full Review of “Fwends”:
Rambling around Melbourne.
This movie is clearly meant to be quirky and charming but sadly came across to me as facile and irritating. Melbourne-resident Jessie (Melissa Gan) picks up her old friend Em (Emmanuelle Mattana) at a central station expressing great excitement. Em has some relatively high-flying graduate legal job in Sydney. Jessie says she spends her time “watering plants, growing plants, playing video games”, so it’s not entirely clear how she earns the dough to pay for her apartment.
The couple then walk back across the city, basically just talking shit about nothing in particular as any two old friends might do. Some of it concerns an issue (sexual harassment at work) that Em is going through. And as the film progresses, we learn that Jessie’s life isn’t as happy-go-lucky as her initial demeaner would have us believe. But was I greatly interested in any of it? No. I really wasn’t.
The reason I suspect Emmanuelle Mattana and Melissa Gan are named as co-writers, along with the director Sophie Somerville, is that most of this stuff feels very much improvised during the shots. A plane flies over, interrupting the shot, so the pair briefly riff on it. I’m happy with films that do this. Sadly, I didn’t think it was particularly good improvisation and I just ended up more annoyed than impressed.
Although only 90 minutes long, this was one of the few LFF films so far where I have repeatedly been looking at my watch.
Story arc.
The story arc, if we can call it that, covers the initial set-up, a fairly predictable falling out of the pair, before a resolution of the argument and them parting on better terms. What did we learn from all of this? I’m really not sure I learned anything other than that my decision to never try drugs has been a good one.
One funny element that I did enjoy was a breakout near the end of the film into a French voiceover (by a “fancy Frenchman”) describing the feelings of the two women. It’s one of the few moments that I did actually laugh out loud.
Long tracking shots and sound.
One thing I was impressed by was the way in which the camera tracked the pair walking around Melbourne. We see them in very long shots, with random pedestrians walking in front of the camera. We also see them talking while travelling in trams from a distant street view. I’m not sure how the sound was captured for these shots, but it must have been quite challenging.
There are also some neat kaleidoscopic photographic effects used during the drug trip scenes.
In space, no one can hear ladybirds scream.
But – FACT CHECK – no… ladybirds do not get more spots as they grow older and – FACT CHECK 2 – the reason there is no noise in space is because there are no air molecules to vibrate. Sigh!
Summary Thoughts:
I’ve not been disappointed by many films during my first week of LFF press showings, but this was one of them. The LFF publicity for the film describes it as “freewheeling and hilarious” but not for me. I’m sure it had good intentions, but just didn’t work from me. And given the stony silence of the press corps as the end titles came up (there is often a smattering of polite applause for many showings) I don’t think I was alone.
Tickets for the London Film Festival showings on 9th and 10th (two showings) October are currently sold out, but here is the booking web site to check for returns or other showings.
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqtqpfTyc-w.
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