Best Friends Forever (2014)
Staci Layne Wilson
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Starring Brea Grant, Vera Miao, Tamara Camille, Ben Hethcoat
Directed by Brea Grant
Harriet and Reba, played by Brea Grant and co-writer Vera Miao, respectively, are the titular BFF’s in this road-tripping apocalyptic adventure that’s akin to a lower budget Thelma and Louise meets This Is the End. The young ladies are driving from Los Angeles to Austin when the world ends… only they don’t know it.
As the big news hits, everyone knows but them. When Harriet and Reba encounter strange, feral people along the highways and byways, they just think they’ve run into a string of bad luck in crazy-town. Most of the film spends its time straddling the lines of kick-ass adventure and heartfelt sis-mance, which is fun at first, but then one’s attention starts to waver.
As a horror and sci-fi fan, and as the classic comic-book artwork on the DVD box suggests, I would have liked to have seen more about the apocalypse. (Then again: The title of the film is a pretty big tip-off.)
Fortunately, Grant and Miao are cute as buttons and as likable as apple pie. You can really see their real-life friendship on the screen as fictional best friends forever. The peripheral cast is good, too, and there are some funny, if disjointed, segues along the way. Also, the soundtrack is fantastic, featuring some of Austin’s best indie bands.
If Best Friends Forever were a studio movie, I would have rated it a tad lower, but taking all things into account – the fact that it was made by women, funded on Kickstarter, and that it’s a plucky, whacky story of friendship against the world – I’m giving this little underdog a boost. Check it out.
3 out of 5
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