Review: The dark British comedy ‘All My Friends Hate Me’ is designed to make you squirm

Cringe comedy doesn’t get a lot darker than “All My Mates Hate Me,” a razor-sharp ensemble piece that finds humor and terror in a standard anxiousness: the concern of constructing a idiot of your self at a celebration. Directed by Andrew Gaynard and co-written by Tom Palmer and Tom Stourton, the movie has the strain of an amazing horror film — though the nightmare it dramatizes is painfully actual.

Stourton stars as Pete, a world support employee who will get invited to rejoice his birthday at a rustic property together with his outdated pals from college, the place he had a popularity as a celebration animal — and a little bit of a scoundrel. In a short time, Pete realizes he’s grown other than these folks, who’ve their very own non-public jokes, and who’ve inexplicably invited alongside an incorrigibly sarcastic stranger named Harry (Dustin Demri-Burns), whom Pete immediately dislikes.

Palmer and Stourton’s screenplay is a mannequin of effectivity. Pete’s historical past together with his hosts — the ladies he made out with, the fellows who keep in mind his youthful shenanigans — solely comes up as wanted. The film is extra targeted on what’s taking place within the second, as Pete tries to determine if he’s being paranoid, or if his friends are mocking him behind his again … and even perhaps actively conspiring to make him depressing.

Gaynard and this glorious forged rigorously keep away from tipping their hand. Each interplay Pete has — particularly with Harry, who appears decided to needle his new acquaintance for no discernible purpose — might be learn as merely awkward or as actively hostile. Pete might be having the worst faculty reunion ever; or he might be excessively self-conscious, as a result of his friends didn’t instantly greet him because the mature do-gooder he now imagines himself to be.

It’s straightforward to see echoes right here of British buddy comedies like “4 Weddings and a Funeral,” which this image displays like a funhouse mirror. It’s additionally a superb companion piece to the superb current American indie “Shiva Child” — additionally a few social gathering that turns into a form of trial.

However “All My Mates Hate Me” could be very a lot its personal factor. It’s humorous at occasions; however for essentially the most half the filmmakers would slightly make viewers bury their heads of their arms. This film is uncompromisingly discomfiting, meant to remind folks of all these drunken nights the place they overreacted to each well-intentioned joke, and awoke choking on the stench of burned bridges.