The Festival (film)

The Festival is a 2018 British comedy film directed by Iain Morris and co-written by Keith Akushie and Joe Parham.[1] The film stars Joe Thomas, Hannah Tointon, Emma Rigby, Hammed Animashaun and Claudia O'Doherty.[2]

The Festival
British release poster
Directed byIain Morris
Produced byClaire Jones
Written byKeith Akushie
Joe Parham
StarringJoe Thomas
Hammed Animashaun
Claudia O'Doherty
Emma Rigby
Jemaine Clement
Music byRael Jones
CinematographySimon Tindall
Edited byCharlie Fawcett
William Webb
Production
companies
Film4
Fudge Park Productions
Distributed byEntertainment Film Distributors (international)
Lionsgate Premiere (North America)
Release date
  • August 14, 2018 (2018-08-14) (United Kingdom)
Running time
98 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Box office$4,523,842

Plot

Nick Taylor's girlfriend, Caitlin, breaks up with him before graduation, and he humiliates himself at the ceremony by begging her to take him back.

Nick’s friend Shane Simpson persuades him to come to the Giant Music Festival to get over her, as they have already bought their tickets and Shane wants to meet DJ Hammerhead (who performs wearing a hammerhead shark mask). On the train they meet Amy, a talkative, yet exuberant and jocund Australian who has attended the festival for nine consecutive years. Shane is clearly attracted to her. Despite hiding from the conductor by pretending to have an orgy in the toilet, the three are ejected from the train for traveling on child tickets.

After reaching the event on foot, Nick and Shane meet Caitlin and her wealthy and arrogant friends, who are staying in a luxurious tent. They meet a man nicknamed “Pirate” because of his amputated leg, who has designs on Caitlin, and puts Nick down by affecting to mistake his name for "Lick". Caitlin loses her phone; Nick finds it, despite being urinated on by another man, and brings it back to the tent. He has to hide when Caitlin and Pirate come in and start having sex, but is discovered; Shane and Nick are ousted and told to camp elsewhere.

Next morning Shane and Nick find that they have camped next to Amy. They spend a day with her, before meeting Caitlin and her friends again. Nick is humiliated by being knocked into the mud by a man who mistakes him for Harry Potter, and storms off back to his tent. Shane and Amy stumble upon a druid wedding in the woods. The groom, Brother David, reveals that he is Hammerhead’s manager and gives them backstage passes; he is then "bound to" his new bride, which turns out to be a male goat, with which he has prolonged sex in public. Meanwhile, Nick meets a girl dressed as a smurf. She gives him half a pill of ecstasy (MDMA), and they enjoy a drug-fueled night, culminating in ecstatic sex in a stranger's car.

Nick wakes to find her gone, but that he now has a nipple ring. Nick, Shane and Amy try to find Smurf Girl. They search piercing parlours, only to find that Nick also now has “My Name’s Not Lick” tattooed on his buttock, and that he left a prosthetic leg behind. When Nick goes to apologize to Pirate, he finds that he and Smurf Girl trashed Caitlin's friends' luxury tent, and that it is somebody else's prosthetic leg, Nick and Shane find a Hen Party of women dressed as smurfs, who promise them Smurf Girl's phone number if they perform a strip tease. The boys are arrested and their wristbands are confiscated so they cannot return to the event. They quarrel, as Shane will now miss Hammerhead’s performance.

Shane's stepfather Robin collects them and drives them home. At a petrol station, Nick finds his redemption and steals his car and drives them back to the festival. While climbing back in over a fence, Nick injures his nipple by catching his piercing on a wire. They reunite with Amy. Pirate, who is working security, tries to stop them from getting backstage but David intervenes. Shane and Amy meet Hammerhead and Amy gives him one of her homemade ‘Chafney’ bars. Nick finds Smurf Girl in the VIP bar, but she has little memory of him and no interest in seeing him again.

Hammerhead has an allergic reaction to the shell fish in the snack and Shane goes on in his place, with his mask on. Pirate tries to remove him; he and Nick fight on stage and the Hammerhead mask is knocked off Shane’s head. Nick throws Pirate’s artificial leg into the crowd, with the help of Amy and she forgives Nick for ostracizing her, throughout the film. Shane plays music he has written himself, which the crowd love. Shane and Amy kiss on live camera. They try to jump into the audience, miscalculate the distance and fall to the ground, but are later seen crowd-surfing away from the stage.

The three return home by train, once again on children’s tickets. Shane and Amy are now a couple, and Nick sits next to a beautiful girl dressed as an elf – only again to have to hide from the ticket inspector in the toilet.

Cast

Production

Parts of the film were filmed at Leeds festival with actual festival goers being used as extras in the large crowd scenes.[4] Filming also took place in fields near to the village of Compton Martin in Somerset.[5]

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 80% based on reviews from 15 critics.[6]

References

  1. McCahill, Mike (14 August 2018). "The Festival review – mud, drugs and jolly druids from Inbetweeners crew". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 24 August 2018. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
  2. "The Festival premiere: On the red carpet with the film's stars and Iain Morris, Miles Kane and Jimmy Carr". theupcoming.co.uk. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
  3. incorrectly listed as "Shane Stubbs" on IMDb
  4. "'Inbetweeners' star Joe Thomas turns Leeds crowd into extras for new movie". nme.com. 26 August 2017. Archived from the original on 2 September 2018. Retrieved 4 September 2018.
  5. https://www.chewvalleygazette.co.uk/article.cfm?id=104066&headline=The%20Chew%20Valley%20provides%20backdrop%20for%20summer%20film%20The%20Festival&sectionIs=news&searchyear=2018
  6. "The Festival (2019)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
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