We Are Your Friends takes viewers inside the Los Angeles club scene. Cole Carter (Zac Efron), a 23-year-old from the San Fernando Valley, aspires to become a celebrity DJ.
Early on, the film shows some promise. In off-screen narration accompanied by a map, Cole explains that the San Fernando Valley is east of the Hollywood Hills. According to him, its principal claim to fame is producing a bunch of ditzy blondes and having the world’s best sushi, supposedly found in various strip malls there.
Cole adds that to make it as a DJ, you need a laptop, a dollop of talent and one good dance track to get the crowd moving. He clarifies the supposed science, underlying the construction of a DJ track. He delineates the various genres of music, their pace, and how they are best syncopated with the human heartbeat.
Cole has an underdeveloped backstory. At one juncture, he offers the fact that his mother taught piano. When asked if she still does, he responds enigmatically, “She might.” Does this portend a plot development, involving mother-son reconciliation, or an eventual clarification of Cole’s family background? Don’t count on it.
Cole is crashing with a gratuitously pugnacious, unbearably obnoxious buddy, Mason (Johnny Weston). They live in the home of the latter’s father. Cole and Mason, along with their two other chums, Ollie (Shiloh Fernandez) and Squirrel (Alex Shaffer), have little purpose in life and seem content to work as bottom-rung club promoters. They cruise college campuses and pass out fliers, hoping to inspire coeds to show up at dance parties.
At Social, Cole has a weekly slot as a DJ but doesn’t get paid anything for plying his skills. However, Cole brags that he receives free drinks as a quid pro quo. Big deal, right? One night at Social, Cole has two separate, fateful encounters: First, he meets a stunning beauty, Sophie (Emily Ratajkowski); then, Cole meets a highly regarded, older DJ, James Reed (Wes Bentley).
James brings Cole to a party at a trendy art gallery where Cole finds himself on a hallucinogen-induced trip. The rotoscoped scene is rendered with considerable imagination and style. Next morning, Cole wakes up at James’ upscale Brentwood home. Guess who else is there? None other than Sophie. Wouldn’t you just know it, she and James turn out to be a couple.
Max Joseph, the co-host and cameraman of TV’s “Catfish,” has made plenty of previous documentaries and video shorts. Here, working off of a screenplay he co-wrote with Meaghan Oppenheimer, Joseph makes his debut at the helm of a non-doc feature. Unfortunately, for all the vehicle’s panache, the narrative is predictable, cliché-ridden and profoundly misogynistic. We Are Your Friends includes a few flashy dance vignettes and plenty of visual flair, but on balance the film is a gyrating, narrative mess.
We Are Your Friends
**1/2
Zac Efron
Emily Ratajkowski
Directed by Max Joseph
Rated R
