Rent Here Are the Young Men (2020)

Here Are the Young Men review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Here Are The Young Men feels like a film that is trying to be overt in its messaging but not overt enough. There are some satirical asides that take direct aim at toxic masculinity and unquestioning of societal structures that force men into uncomfortable situations. Perhaps there was something more here but it’s sadly lost in a smearing of sex and drugs that turns the film more into a hazy fog of youth, desperate for some lighthouse of grounding to it all.

The film follows Matthew Connolly (Dean-Charles Chapman), a troublesome teenager who finds himself getting into all sorts of chaotic antics on the British streets. It’s only during a near-death accident that Matthew starts questioning his own life and life itself. Whoa, heavy stuff. That’s a topic worth exploring but with whom? His mates are all just as troublesome. Joseph Kearney (Finn Cole) is a cackling loose cannon who harbors a party-hard life while Rez (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) doesn’t believe in much of anything. Life is either a blinding party where you drink as much as you can or it’s nothing. Matthew finds himself stuck somewhere in the middle.

However, as they grow up, they go their separate ways after leaving school. One of them takes off for America and learns all about how wild the American lifestyle can be for a misogynist. Most of this is communicated through a fantastical game show which exists somewhere between dreams and reality. Wild stuff.

Matthew starts finding more to life beyond his addiction to booze and drugs when meeting Jen (Anya Taylor-Joy). They start falling in love and speculating on a better future. But is there a future? All the trippy parties and addiction to drugs suggest not. But maybe there is. But maybe not?

One can feel that a cautionary tale of youth such as this may be aiming to be the next Trainspotting or Thirteen. It almost reaches that point. You can feel it bursting with anger and catharsis, angry at the world and trying to give the young people a voice before they drown their worries in beer and coke. There’s certainly some commentary on the nature of distractions. The game show that constantly appears on television contains blatantly politically incorrect statements and harsh commentary on how masculinity is treated more like a game than something men struggle to comprehend and understand.

But then there are sequences that get lost in the staging. The scene at a club, for example, where Jen is nearly raped while drunk and the darkness feels overshadowed by the neon lighting and dance music peppering the scene. It creates this off-putting nature, especially since other scenes around the club favor a more appropriate soundtrack.

There’s a point somewhere within Here Are The Young Men about how there’s an escape from the roles men feel destined as their box. But any meaningful statement feels sadly lost in its hardcore staging, where a thematic dissonance robs the picture of a grander ambition. Here’s a film that presents the young men but can’t quite find the things it wants to say about them.