Review for The Festival

Nick is a young guy who during University has been dating Caitlin, but on day of Graduation she dumps him which spirals him into misery. To get himself out of this he goes to a festival with his best friend Shane. On the way they meet Amy, an overly cheery Australian, who after they are kicked off the train, for trying to travel on Child Tickets ‘Because they are so much cheaper’ they make their way to the festival.

At the festival, Nick bumps into Caitlin and her friends and is convinced that she wants to get back with him. Instead, she hooks up with Festival worker Pirate and this leads Nick into a spiral of drink, drugs and sex with a Smurf. While this is going on Shane and Amy get close and experience a very unique wedding. Upon waking, Nick finds his Smurfette has vanished and he spends the next day trying to find her, promising Shane that they will be back before the DJ he wants to see is on. This leads to more mayhem, mud and mischief.

This film was so obviously created by the maker of The Inbetweeners that it could easily have just been a continuation of the series. Oddly, he did not write the script and so I’m not sure whether if he had been involved it would have been better. Joe Thomas seems destined to spend his life playing this same character and that is my main issue with the film. His character of Nick could easily be Simon from The Inbetweeners and so this felt a little lazy. For most of the part, it is enjoyable and I found myself laughing, but many of the jokes felt a little easy and it leaned far too much into the crude humour.

It is a shame that the film was not just about the character of Shane (played by Hammad Animashaun) and Amy (played by Claudia O’Doherty) as it is here where this film really comes to life. Amy is such a fantastic character and her interactions with Shane throughout the film are fabulous. I do hope that a sequel can be created just focusing on these too as I loved every scene they appeared in.

The only extra they include is just a short featurette regarding how they created some of the scenes to recreate crowd for the festival or to make it look bigger. This was fine in general, but nothing spectacular and actually took away a little of the magic that they actually filmed it at a festival, which they did. Maybe if it had an introduction of commentary to explain why they did it, it would have been better. It is a shame that a film like this did not have things like a blooper reel or commentary as this seemed like the kind of film that would have amazing behind the scenes moments.

Despite all this, this is still an entertaining film to watch and I do think that it is worth a watch. If you have ever been to a festival you will relate to some of the stories and moments and despite the gross-humour there is much to enjoy in this film. I doubt that it is a film you will watch more than once, but it is definitely a film that if you enjoy things like The Inbetweeners you will enjoy.