Izabel Pakzad’s Find Your Friends joins the pantheon of teen party films with a horrific twist, but while we traditionally spend our time with frat boys enjoying their benders in a boys-will-be-boys-world, Pakzad’s more interested in illustrating that journey from the female perspective. 

Amber (Helena Howard), Lavinia (Bella Thorne), Zosia (Zión Moreno), Lola (Chloe Cherry) and Maddy (Sophia Ali) are headed to Joshua Tree on a bestie trip for a much-needed throwdown, but there are a couple of issues standing in the way of their fun. First, the girls seem to be more frienemies than friends, with only Amber and Lola seeming to actually like each other much and, perhaps more dangerously, the locals have very little interest in a group of loud city girls disturbing their peace.

On paper Find Your Friends sounds like a bitchy crashout film that follows a bunch of women who secretly hate each other and have very little idea how to be actual friends. And, for a moment, it’s just that. But it’s there that the title earns its keep, acting not just as a descriptor of the plot after several of the girls go missing, but also as a poignant metaphor for what happens when you walk through fire with folks and find out who your true friends are on the other side. 

We had the opportunity to talk to Pakzad about her film, as well as stars Howard, Moreno, Cherry, and Ali. When it comes to the film’s title, Pakzad couldn’t agree more with the above assessment.

“I think it’s quite literally they can’t find their friends but also metaphorically because it feels like these girls are really close and they have a rapport with each other, but then there is a lot of these kind of messy complicated dynamics between all of them,” she explains. “They can’t quite see each other, and I think especially… with Amber, she feels like no one sees her and she doesn’t feel heard. But the other girls are not seeing, they’re not understanding. You know they’re kind of lost in their own world or focused on their own thing, or just focused on having fun.”

Howard’s character, Amber, goes through remarkable trauma early on in the film. But because her relationship with her “friends” is as messy as it is, she doesn’t feel comfortable talking to any of them about it. Because of that, she kind of ends up bringing down the mood on the whole trip,  which the rest of the crew ends up pretty pissed about. 

The messiness of the girls’ relationship was important to both the cast and creative team, as it really helps drive home the message of intent for Find Your Friends. 

“There’s so much toxicity that we still have to overcome and it’s not just men, it’s not just women, it’s both sides,” Howard explains. “It’s just kind of like undoing generations of societal trauma that have led us to where we are today as women, you know […] I think that this movie really talks about how important it is to kind of remove all of this outside noise and see each other as women and come together.”

Internalized misogyny is a hell of a drug, and Find Your Friends has absolutely no interest in ignoring how it impacts young women as well as men. Of course who will see the end of that journey is something you’ll have to experience for yourself when it comes to Find Your Friends. The ending is simply too delightfully earned for us to go into detail here, but suffice to say if boys want to be boys, then girls will defend themselves in kind.

For Pakzad, she took the inspiration for that messaging from women who came before her. 

“Watching like Coly Fargette’s and Julia Ducarneau’s work and seeing how there’s a deeper message to the films, but they do have this horror and gore element to them… there’s something powerful about telling a story with meaning but also balancing it with something fun and light, and kind of wild and crazy with the gore,” she explains. “Those are the films that inspire me, so making a movie like that is what I wanted to do. I’m really inspired by these women who go and direct these movies and in this genre, because I just love genre movies in general.” 
Pakzad’s reverence for said genre films shines through in spades, particularly in the last 30 minutes of the film. Find Your Friends is part revenge-thriller, part Joy Ride, and all dedicated to the art of finding yourself and your people throughout the worst of experiences. The film hasn’t been purchased for distribution just yet, but keep your eyes peeled over the next few months for more news on that front.

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