Coming to select theaters in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Phoenix and Sarasota, as well as for home entertainment, on May 31, 2024 is the film Guy Friends.
Specific locations are at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City, the Cinelounge Sunset in Los Angeles, the Cinelounge Tiburon in San Francisco, the SIFF Film Center in Seattle, the Harkins Theatres Gateway Pavilions 18 in Phoenix, and Burns Court Cinema in Sarasota.
Guy Friends was an official selection at Cambria Film Festival, the winner of “Outstanding Acting Duo” for Kavita Jariwala and Katie Muldowney at Ridgefield Independent Film Festival, a nominee for “Breakthrough Female Performance” for Kavita Jariwala at Festival of Cinema NYC, the winner of “Best Feature Film” and a nominee for “Best Comedy,” “Best Director,” and “Best Actress in a Feature Film” at Bergen International Film Festival of NJ, and distributed by Freestyle Digital Media.
The film stars stars newcomer Kavita Jariwala, an Indian-American nurse who had never acted prior to this project, Katie Muldowney, a graduate of The Actors Studio, and Justin Clark, also a graduate of The Actors Studio and a producer on the film.
The director, the writer, a producer, and the editor of Guy Friends, Jonathan Smith was also the cinematographer, a sound mixer, and the voice of one of the titular guy friends since the film was a pandemic micro-production with minimal crew. An odd duck in the film industry, Jonathan is a Yale University graduate, an improvisational and sketch comedian, a self-taught musician, and a multilingual Intelligence Officer in the United States Navy.
Jamie (Jariwala) and her boyfriend Patrick (Michael Dahlgren) seem like a happy couple, that is until Patrick tells her that he wants to take a break for a month. No sooner does Patrick want a break, Jamie finds out that many of the men in her life (young and old), from her boss to the door man, all have crushes on her. Worse yet, the declare their love for her.
Not understanding why this is happening, Jamie turns to her friend Ted (Justin Clark), who has a new girlfriend, Sandy (Muldowney). They make her understand that the reason why all these men are friends with her is not because they actually want to be friends with her, but more so because they want to be close to her because they are crushing on her.
Jamie considers herself a a “guy friend,” because all her friends are guys. She doesn’t have any friends that are females.
With Sandy’s help, Jamie soon learns what having a real friends is all about.
Check out Guy Friends if you live in one of the above mentioned locations, or on streaming platforms.
This film cost less than $5,000 (post-production added to that amount) to make, which is totally unheard of in this day and age. Most films are made budgets worth millions of dollars. Kudos to the film makers for doing that. That is pretty impressive.
Guy Friends is shot in black and white, which an occasional scene in color. I’m not sure of the reason behind that. Honestly, I would have preferred that the entire film be in color. I have nothing against black and white film (I love the old classics), but a film set in today’s world would have been nicer to see in color.
I can’t say that I can relate to the film’s subject, but from personal experience, when I was younger (teens and early 20’s) I had male friends. I knew they would never date a girl like me (I was overweight), so I figured that I could at least get close to them as a friend and dream of what it would be like if we were more than friends. in a way I’m more like the men in Jamie’s life. The male friends in my life were real friends to me. They didn’t have any ulterior motive.
It’s a cute movie. I enjoyed watching the friendship between Jamie and Sandy develop. It might not have been a traditional start (Jamie didn’t care for Sandy in the beginning), but it was sweet watching them become besties.
The acting was decent. For a first time actress, I think Kavita Jariwala did a great job. I’m sure she’ll be getting more acting gigs in the future.
I really enjoyed Katie Muldowney. She came across as someone that I would like to become friends with. I think she was the perfect choice to play the part of Sandy.
The movie has a run time of about an hour and twenty minutes. I am not sure of the rating, but I’m leaning towards R or at the very least PG-13.
Below is the film’s trailer for your enjoyment.
Kimberly
*I received a free screener of this film in order to do this review. There was no compensation. The opinions expressed are my own and not influenced in any way.
