BFFs (Andrew Putschuoegl, 2014): USA

Reviewed by Linnea Nilsson at Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2014

As a person who likes complicated stories and lots of effects in movies, BFF’s really impressed me. It does not have a complicated story nor any effects. It’s a very simple-made movie, but that is actually why it’s so great. Because after all, a movie is all about the story and this one has a really good one. BFF’s is written by Tara Karsian and Andrea Grano, who both play the main characters in the story.

The movie centers two middle aged women named Samantha and Kat, who has been best friends for a very long time. When they are celebrating Kat’s birthday, she receives a gift certificate for a weekend at a couples retreat. Being newly single, she and Samantha decides to go to it together – pretending to be a couple. During their weekend, they meet a lot of interesting and different couples while they all are trying to get a better relationship with couples-exercises. Exercises that, most of the time, makes Kat and Samantha laugh. What Samantha and Kat didn’t expect of this weekend was that their relationship will be tested and they will have to make a decision to either face the test or ignore it.

The script was really well-written. They both had this kind of hate-love towards each other and it was so funny to watch. Their dialog and comebacks were so hilarious and smart, that the theatre had a lot of big laughter throughout the movie. The other couples are also a reason of why I think this movie is so well-written; They all have these strong characteristics and are so different from each other. But they all are, somewhat, normal and realistic people. Keeping it to reality is something that the writers tried to do, as they reviled at the Q&A afterwards. I can actually see the realistic during the movie, since they had really long scenes that didn’t have that much action – as the normal life is. One scene could, for example, start with one of the couples sitting towards one another, one talking about their problems and the other one putting post-it notes on the one who is talking. Then they switched to the next couple, that did the same thing, and after that – another couple doing the same thing. Most of the scenes were like that. But it was never boring.

It was the opposite of boring. Their dialogs and acting made all the scenes so interesting and entertaining that it never bothered me that they where long. I must say that I loved the acting of Tara Karsian, who played Kat. It feels weird to write it, but she just had a perfect facial expression that suited perfectly to the character. The other actors also did a great job, such as Richard Moll and Sigrid Thornton, but no one can measure up to Tara’s acting.

This movie was the funniest movie at the festival and I am so happy that I got to see it and witness the Q&A after. Seriously, these two women are both amazing in the movie and outside the screen.