Finding your people while growing up is pretty difficult. It can be accidental, it can be manufactured through parental involvement, but it always remains trying as you discover who you are as you collect the people you hope to keep along for the ride. In an ideal world, the friends we make, the often titled “chosen family,” come with few-to-no strings — just acceptance and support. But that’s not reality as everyone has their hangups, their perceptions, and their own needs. So, just like romances, friendships are love stories with ups, downs, and challenges. In the latest project by filmmaker Jonathan Smith (Batsh*t Bride), co-developed as a story by Chris Siemasko (Space Knights Go!), the semi-sweet alt-love story Guy Friends, he punches down on toxic masculinity and raises up friendship in a tale as old as time.
Kavita Jariwala as Jamie in GUY FRIENDS. Photo courtesy of Vile Henchmen Productions.
Future architect hopeful Jamie (Kavita Jariwala) lives a seemingly perfect life wherein those around her are supportive and uplifting, from her neighbor to her Uber driver to her regular coffeehouse barista to the security officer at her job. But when her longtime boyfriend Patrick (Michael Dahlgren) suddenly wants to separate, Jamie learns that those men in her circle aren’t as friendly as they originally seemed. Enter Sandy (Katie Muldowney), a Chicago transplant dating Jamie’s college friend Ted (Justin Clark), who may just be exactly what Jamie needs to turn things around — that is, if Jamie can stop being a “guy’s girl.”
L-R: Justin Clark as Ted and Kavita Jariwala as Jamie in GUY FRIENDS. Photo courtesy of Vile Henchmen Productions.
As a cis male, there’re certain things that, frankly, were never thought about when making friends or being interested in women. Things that seemed harmless or well-intentioned at the time now came with the realization, upon discussing them years later with my wife, EoM Editor Crystal Davidson, that they may have been creepy as hell. The cis male perspective is so completely different than any female one as there’s a section of men who engage the world through the lens as to whether a woman has worth based on how fuckable she is. In the world of Tinto Brass’s stories (Frivolous Lola; All Ladies Do It), the women are more likely to be consenting to leering, groping, or penetration, but reality is far different with women not as frequently given the chance to provide consent before men make advances. This is where the presumption comes from that men are interested in “only one thing” and where Guy Friends finds its teeth as the script balances Jamie’s realization regarding many of her male relationships, the value of her seeking female friendships, and skewing toxic masculinity. Impressively, though Ted and Sandy don’t let Jamie off the hook for her part in what happens (calling her naïve, not deserving — an important distinction), their reaction to her plight is as much about helping her remove her blinders as it is calling out the presumptive behavior of so many men with the women in their lives. More specifically within the themes of the film, calling out what being a friend really means and the absence of delusion that is the “friend zone.” The presentation here by Smith and Siemasko and the way that Smith dissects toxic masculinity implies a closeness, some level of understanding of what it is women go through and the shallowness that can exist between false friends.
Despite all of the above, Guy Friends is a love story. It’s a story of self-affirmation for Jamie, but it’s also one between herself and the first female friend she makes, Sandy. Smith tells us this before we meet Jamie through the use of a narrative device akin to 1989’s When Harry Met Sally…, except where that film begins and ends with lovers being interviewed by a documentarian (with interviews sprinkled throughout), Smith adjusts the framing to that of a documentary on friendships. Thus, Smith clues the audience in from the start that the tale before us isn’t as interested in traditional romance (though it is significant to the story here) as it is what friendship is and what we owe each other as people. Honestly, the film is far less interesting as a romantic story (all the men, save Ted, are gross assholes) compared to when it is focused on Jamie and her relationship to Sandy. Part of this is because we observe Jariwala transform Jamie from someone clearly walking innocently through the world into a full person, having learned truths about her own weak spots. It’s small things that occur throughout the film, but Jariwala, in her first feature role, uses them to change into someone who not only sees how she impacts the world, but is more capable of making an impact herself, no longer fine with being a supporting player in someone else’s life, a key aspect to the way men see her. As her scene partner, Muldowney, in her first feature, steals the show as Sandy. At first, it feels strange to almost prefer Sandy’s presence on-screen over Jamie’s, until one realizes that it’s entirely the point: Muldowney makes Sandy electric, yet grounded; the exact kind of friend you need who will have your back and will call you on your shit. It’s through the friendships we make that we often find out who we really are and Muldowney makes Sandy into the kind of friend we all wish we’d had. Muldowney doesn’t present Sandy as perfect, but as streets ahead of where Jamie is at the start, therefore seeming like a well-traveled guide for our zygote Jamie at the start of her own journey. Their dynamic, both the characters’ and the actors’, makes the film absolutely worth the experience.
Katie Muldowney as Sandy in GUY FRIENDS. Photo courtesy of Vile Henchmen Productions.
With recent films like Poor Things (2023), Oppenheimer (2023), and Dune: Part Two (2024) containing elements of the film in black and white, it’s worth exploring the use of it within Smith’s film. Serving as cinematographer, Smith uses color in the documentary scenes and monochrome for the rest of the film. Visually, it helps separate the sequences, denoting one that’s presented as being recorded versus one being presented as happening naturally. Each interview sequence does include some kind of auditory prompt from the unseen documentarians, so the visual cue isn’t entirely necessary, but what it does do is help clarify Jamie’s perspective. Her world, the monochromatic one, is all she knows, this blah life of propping up others and being unaware of what friendship really is. It’s a stylistic choice with meaning, rather than co-opting some kind of fade or trend. The starkness, the minimalism of the images, helps to clarify the intent of the characters and their weight for each other in a way that the color of a traditional presentation would distract from.
L-R: Katie Muldowney as Sandy and Kavita Jariwala as Jamie in GUY FRIENDS. Photo courtesy of Vile Henchmen Productions.
On the whole, there’re few surprises within Guy Friends in terms of narrative trajectory, and it contains some performances from the cast that signify their roughness in their first features with lines performed rather than naturally stated. However, the execution of the ideas within the script and the charisma from Muldowney carry the audience through, crafting an opportunity for any viewer to ponder whether they have to do some reevaluation on their part or whether there are some amends to be made.
In limited theatrical release, on DVD, VOD, and digital May 31st, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Freestyle Digital Media Guy Friends webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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Categories: Home Video, Reviews, streaming
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