Coming out in 2018, The Festival may be a few years old now, and so a review of it may not make much sense.
But with no music festivals on this year, watching music-festival-themed films is all I’ve got!
So I’ll probably review a few music festival films, because they’re all we have for the moment, and maybe for a long time…
Festival Films Shortage
Isn’t it strange that there aren’t more films based on festivals?
There are some famous documentaries, like Woodstock or the Netflix original: FYRE.
There are also a few fictional films about festivals, like Waynes World 2 and A Star Is Born (Which was shot at Glastonbury, but I don’t think has very much to do with festivals overall…)
But considering how big music festivals are and how long they’ve been around, I’m surprised there aren’t more documentaries about them.
Even Googling Music Festival Films produces a list of films that I’ve either not heard of, or don’t know what they have to do with festivals.
So yes, it’s a bit of a mystery why there aren’t more films set at music festivals, but that’s another question for another day.
Because we’re here to talk about a film that absolutely IS about a music festival:
Backstory and Actors
After leaving The Inbetweeners, all the main actors seemed to struggle to find work that wasn’t just ‘The Inbetweeners in another situation’.
One of the first shows to come out after The Inbetweeners finished, Plebs, was explicitly reviewed as ‘The Inbetweeners meets Ancient Rome’.
Even Friday Night Dinner, probably the best show Simon Bird has been in since The Inbetweeners, is still just ‘The Inbetweeners at home’.
So Joe Thomas being in a film about a Music Festival? Well, I guess it’s slightly further apart from the Inbetweeners, but it’s definitely still something that could have been the plot of an episode.
Oh well.
Onto the film!
The Festival – Plot
- A guy gets depressed because his girlfriend breaks up with him.
- His friend tries to cheer him up by taking him to a festival.
- Shenanigans ensue.
Okay, maybe a little bit more detail is needed.
Nick (Joe Thomas) gets dumped by his girlfriend Caitlin (Hannah Tointon) and goes into a spiral of depression.
So, his friend Shane (Hammed Animashaun) takes him to Giant Music Festival (clever name).
They meet some wacky people, experience the highs and lows of the UK festival scene, and the film ends on a happy note, because hey, this isn’t exactly The Day The Clown Cried.
Overview
The film is a hyper-realistic portrayal of a music festival.
It’s pretty much everything you recognise from a festival, but every aspect of it is turned up to 11.
It’s like a visual representation of how you say your festival was, rather than how it actually was.
The Good Stuff
(Most of) The Jokes
There are some absolutely fantastic jokes in this film. From the awkwardness of the main characters to situational jokes about festivals, it definitely gets its fair share of laughs.
There is a line from drug-user Gordy (Theo Barklem-Biggs), that is the highlight of the film for me.
I won’t spoil it but seriously, I still remember from time to time it and it always sets me off giggling again.
The film actually manages to get a lot of comedy out of the observational stuff.
If you have ever been to a festival, you will laugh because you’ll relate to the jokes being made, which is always a good sign.
The Cast
I’m never usually very interested in who is in a film, but the cast of The Festival really do work well together.
Joe Thomas and Hammed Animashaun are brilliant. They have a great, believable bro-lationship, and Claudia O’Doherty does a perfect job as the quirky weirdo, Amy.
Nicks dad, Robin, played by the fantastic Jemaine Clement is very odd and at times maybe a bit surreal for the generally down-to-earth comedy of the film.
However, I still think it works. It takes the comedy from the awkwardness of meeting your mates weird dad, but pushes it to the absolute limits.
If you’ve ever had a friends parent try to give you life advice while also trying to seem cool, his scenes will hit home.
The Atmosphere
The film does a very good job of capturing the spirit of a music festival.
The size and scale of it, the eclectic types of people attending, even the feeling of being in a big crowd watching a band on a sunny weekend afternoon, the film captures it really well.
Parts of the film were actually shot at Leeds Festival 2017, which makes total sense.
How do you best capture the festival atmosphere? Be at a festival!
Off topic, I was at this festival! I remember them asking us to act like we had been electrocuted for a scene in this film!
I also have checked, and I didn’t see myself in this film. Maybe my acting was just too good that I was upstaging the actors.
The Bad Stuff:
The Festival is not the perfect festival film, not by a long shot.
While it is generally a fun romp of a movie, it definitely has some aspects that I could do without.
(Some of) The Jokes
Some of the jokes in the film just do not land.
Most of the time, they fall flat because they take away from the generally realistic festival atmosphere.
The film is essentially observational comedy about festivals.
That’s when the jokes work well. When it’s making a joke about something relatable you’ve seen as a festival (The grossness, the drunk people and the drug taking).
So when the film tries a joke that is so outside what the audience knows about festivals, it doesn’t land.
Here’s an example: my least favourite joke in the film:
Nick is trying to watch a band, and someone behind him tells him to move, because he’s blocking his view.
That’s fine, everyone has experienced a tall guy in front of you at a gig.
But thats not the joke. The joke is that the guy is just being a dick and wants Nick to move. Which isn’t very funny.
but then the film doubles down on it, with everyone in the crowd getting annoyed at Nick for being in the way.
It’s not funny, it’s non-sensical and it goes against everything I know about festivals.
No-one would act that way to him. They either wouldn’t care, or they would get annoyed at the other guy for being a dick.
There aren’t too many jokes like this, but whenever the film strays into the absurd, that’s when it loses some appeal for me.
Over-The-Top
As I at points the film does go very Over The Top and weird.
But at the end of the film, it changes from being hyper realistic to just… hyper.
Suffice to say that the main characters end up first backstage and then on the main stage.
For the average festival attendee, that is not relatable.
The ending is still enjoyable as a wish-fulfilment, everything’s-great, feel-good type of thing, but it goes against the first hour and a half to the film, which is a little jarring.
Overall score
I give The Festival a 7/10.
Now this may be generous considering some of its failings, but I think that its wins do make up for them.
For the most part, the film is a fairly realistic, and funny, portrayal of a festival.
And with the Coronavirus still around, it is probably the closest any of us will get to the real thing for quite some time, so make the most of it and check this film out if you haven’t already!
