‘We Are Your Friends’ Review: Oh God, Has Gen Y Just Been Immortalised By DJ Zac Efron?

It’s pretty remarkable that director Max Joseph was able to densely pack such a vast collection of things I dislike into one film. We Are Your Friends has EDM, Zac Efron, bros, and Zac Efron aggressively bro-ing out to EDM while trying to make it as an amateur DJ — the one thing that’s worse than being an actual DJ.

But what’s more impressive than all that is the fact that Joseph did this while creating something I actually enjoyed. Well, kind of. It’s by no means an instant classic, and Efron didn’t just McConaughey his way into an Oscar or anything, but the fact that I left the theatre pleasantly engaged in thought rather than desperately clawing at my ears and screaming at rogue teens loitering outside the cinema is worth talking about.

Named after the Justice v Simian song of the same name, We Are Your Friends follows 23-year-old DJ Cole (Efron) as he tries to catch his big break in the music industry. From his friend’s parents’ house nestled deep in the San Fernando Valley outside of LA — apparently known best for its porn industry, “ditzy chicks” and sushi — he works on new tracks in preparation for a regular set at a local nightclub before eventually being noticed by once-successful washed-up DJ James Reed (Wes Bentley).

Through all this, he’s flanked by three close friends who are all chasing their own dreams in the vague way that small-time club promoters chase anything. One’s thinking of becoming an actor, another is into the idea of entrepreneurship, the third is still figuring it all out, and all of them are constantly talking. They’re talking about how to leave home, about ways to get quick cash, and about their future more generally. Occasionally they do all three while staring forlornly at the sea.

On paper, this is dumb — it’s really, really dumb — but on screen there’s something weirdly satisfying to it. I hate myself for even considering it, but is this actually a decent movie about Gen Y?

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YOUTHHHHHHHS

We Are Your Friends is self-aware in all the ways you might expect from a film about #cool #young #kids. There’s occasional direct narration and slabs of Helvetica which pop on screen like Efron’s leading a TAFE seminar on Ableton. If you actually have any experience with EDM, there’s a good chance that’ll be patronising enough to send you running, but for everyone else it’s not so bad. Done sparingly throughout (and with consistently impressive cinematography) it knowingly draws from the brash and manic style of the music itself.

What’s more interesting is the way the film appears acutely aware of its broader context in American pop culture — with a cast who are inextricably linked to hugely influential aspects of film, TV and music outside of their characters, at times it seems like they’re enacting their own existential crises on screen.

Director Max Joseph is perfectly poised to pull this off. At just 33 years old, this is his first feature film and he made it while on hiatus from his role as a creator and co-host of MTV’s Catfish. Alongside Nev Schulman (the guy who was originally catfished in the 2010 movie of the same name), Joseph has spent the past few years not only operating in the distinctly 21st century genre of reality TV, but also literally documenting the highs and lows of life in the digital age. He may not be a small-fry DJ, but he definitely knows what it’s like to be a young creative type struggling in LA right now.

Taking up this role on screen, Cole is the unlikely young kid seeking fame with one big track, and he’s being played by the world-famous kid who’s now seeking to distance himself from what was his biggest hit. Between the R-ratings of both Bad Neighbours and That Awkward Moment in this past year alone, it’s clear that Zac Efron is on a real mission to shake the persisting image of him as High School Musical‘s squeaky-clean, bowl-cutted heartthrob (and the humiliating BuzzFeed lists that go along with that). Like many other Disney stars before him, he’s divorced himself from the younger generation in order to catch up with his own.

This is perfectly contrasted against his love interest Sophie, a successful DJ’s personal assistant played by Emily Ratajkowski. Though you may not recognise her name, the Sports Illustrated model, Gone Girl co-star, and Entourage arm candy is very much a Girl Of The Moment — one who regrettably owes much of her fame to this:

As if with this in mind, We Are Your Friends goes out of its way to give her an (admittedly super thin) plot line. Sophie’s dropped out of Stanford, she’s spending her time in a mostly unhappy relationship with an older man, and being sledged by her classmates for her looks and sex life. It’s not exactly a unique or bewildering insight into the mechanisms of gender politics, independence or success, but it’s more than she was ever offered as Ben Affleck’s big-titted bang buddy.

On the other side of this is a very deliberate portrayal of Gen X. Luring Cole and his buds away from their idealistic creative pursuits, Jon Berthnal plays a dodgy salesman who swindles people out of their mortgages and tells the kids to focus on things that are concrete; a fairly appropriate role for a guy whose face is still familiar from doing exactly this in Wolf Of Wall Street. And going even further down this rabbit hole of Celebrity Guess Who is James Reed; the commercially-successful-yet-jaded musician telling Cole to “pay attention to the world around him” is played by Wes Bentley — a guy who got famous for almost that exact same line 16 years ago in American Beauty.

This isn’t all to say the movie’s perfect, but it does make it bold: a grand, unabashed survey of the culture at large.

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The Youths Of Yore

Though these larger concerns about life and love and THE FUTURE are constantly pumping away throughout, it’s all played out against the music. Extended party sequences — including a well-executed animated scene — are some of the film’s most creatively daring, and as the characters pop between pre-drinks, a fairly barren looking club, private parties, house parties, and music festivals their world is sketched well.

But that’s not to say it’s glorified. In the same way that 25-year-old filmmaker Justin Kerrigan wanted to document the fun, dumb world of ’90s drug and club culture in Human Traffic, We Are Your Friends doesn’t shy away from making fun of its lead characters. Known for his ridiculous passes at women, one of Cole’s best friends at one point literally sits enthralled in front of a nature documentary of lions fucking, and the bravado and hollow terminology of the EDM world is often undercut to great effect. After talking about sick tracks and epic drops, Efron’s character is plainly called out as an idiot.

In fact, in this way, the film sits surprisingly well along other cult films from the genre such as Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People. While the much-loved docudrama focussed on the iconic Manchester music scene of the ’80s and ’90s in retrospect, We Are Your Friends attempts to cover its own movement from within.

Why do people pack themselves into sweaty clubs and music festivals? How does this new music stack up against past offerings? As if asking for direct comparison, even the trailers are directed in the same style — a direct interrogation of a specific place, its people, and the unlikely revolutions therein.

Or, at least with its men. Though DJ Zac Efron is very much painted as a Good Guy and his chauvinistic friends portrayed as idiots, the actual involvement of substantial female characters is next to none. Sophie has her ham-fisted school plot, and a few (at least assertive) girls from the club get their own fleeting sex scenes, but as Jezebel note, outside of that there are only a couple of other speaking roles for women — two of which are just a repeated joke of asking the DJ to play ‘Drunk In Love’.

Thankfully, this distinctly dude-centric world is more Swingers than Entourage. Cole and his friends are struggling for work, for validation, and for any real meaning against the deliberately desolate backdrop of suburban LA — a somewhat familiar filmic setting where the wealth and fame of Hollywood are painfully out of reach. Their grandiose ambitions and freewheeling lifestyle are often thwarted to significant effect, and the realistic portrayal of working class insecurity is maybe the most successful thing about the film itself.

Alternatively, I don’t know if the film’s grand statements about Gen Y will stand the test of time. Are these the best minds of my generation, destroyed by music, starving, hysterical, naked, dragging themselves past American Apparent at dawn looking for an angry fix? I hope not. But if history must remember the Ray Ban-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, it seems like DJ Zac Efron is the right guy to lead ’em there.

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We Are Your Friends is in cinemas Thursday August 27.