The Festival (2018)

(On Cable TV, August 2020) Movies can be about vicarious living, and I’ve known for a while that while I may enjoy music played at festivals, I would hate the experience of the festivals themselves. (By now, I’m also decades too old for sleeping in tents, getting drunk and traipsing in mud all day long.) As evidence that I should leave music festivals to those who will enjoy them, I offer raunchy comedy The Festival. Our story begins with a new college graduate being dumped right before the graduation ceremony… but still heading over to a Leeds-like music festival even knowing that his ex-girlfriend is going to be there. Much mayhem ensues from that point on, with weird people, drunken stupors, stripteases and car sex being almost-mandatory checkpoints along the way. It’s raunchy, foul-mouthed and wince-inducing (mild physical mutilation is included) and still funny enough to be a good-enough time. Much of it depends on the actors—Joe Thomas takes centre stage as the nebbish protagonist (he gets better), with Hammed Animashaun and Claudia O’Doherty in supporting roles. The Leeds music festival itself provides the amazing sight of fields full of tents and debauchery. The comedic arc is intensely predictable, but that’s part of the point: People buy tickets to The Festival knowing what they will hear and how they’re going to feel, with a bit of adventure along the way. I could have skipped some of the film’s less wholesome moments, but it’s not a bad time. Furthermore, The Festival has further reinforced my conviction to avoid music festivals, so that’s an extra.