extra geography movie review
Starring: Marnie Duggan, Galaxy Clear, Alice Englert, Aoife Riddell
Director: Molly Manners
Star Rating: ★★★★★
We’ve all lived it, and yet nothing is certain about the experience of growing up in school: making friends, thinking they’ll last forever, and desperately hoping we’ll soon be adults. It’s a unique experience, yet we’ve all been there, yearning for the attention of that one teacher we love.
Molly Manners’ gripping and slowly moving drama Extra Geography tackles the pressures and anxieties of an English girls’ boarding school, where two best friends cling to each other and do all sorts of things that they think will lead them to find love. Turns out, even Shakespeare didn’t know much, so how could these girls know any better?
Base
Here we are with Minna and Flick (played by first-time actors Galaxy Clear and Marnie Duggan), who are completely in sync with each other. They sit near each other in class, open their notebooks together, eat lunch, go back to their dorm rooms and, most importantly, share a common indifference towards boys. Wow, boys! Adapted from Rose Tremaine’s short story of the same name by Succession author Miriam Batty, these opening scenes are delivered with amazing authenticity and style that may remind audiences of Lady Bird. But this is a film laced with that sly British humor, and even when the focus remains on the experiences of these two girls, it moves with a bright level of uneasiness.
Minna decides it would be a good idea to fall in love first; Maybe this could be a real experience they can share over the summer. Who could be better than soft-spoken geography teacher Miss Delavigne (Alice Englert)? However, their simple plan faces a major obstacle with the announcement of a co-ed summer play that the girls have to audition for. It’s Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a play full of donkeys and other animals, as Flick describes with disdain. They must stick together through it all, even if their friendship is quite simply tested along the way.
what works
Hilarious and completely fresh in its tone, Extra Geography is a gift of a film. As a viewer you know you are watching something special, even if it is unfolding in real time, such is the brightness and liveliness of it. Manners skillfully captures the idiosyncrasies and disappointments, the small acts of cruelty that hurt most because they are coming from a close friend who has known us forever.
Extra Geography is full of humor, but the main reason it works is that Manners never gets laughs at the expense of its heroes. We never laugh at them; Sometimes, we feel a little embarrassed and we always stay close like a guardian force. Joe Randall-Cutler’s editing is also one of its strongest assets, with scenes flowing organically, even as bittersweet lessons grow along the way. There is not a single false note in it.
Galaxy Clear and Marnie Duggan give two absolutely wonderful performances as Minna and Flick, their characters emerging as their own personalities as the film progresses. Manners’ filmmaking is confident and lively, imbued with the knowledge that makes Extra Geography one of those movies you watch once and feel every heartbeat beneath it. Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, it’s an instant triumph. I’m glad such a movie exists.
Shantanu Das is covering the Sundance Film Festival as part of Accredited Press.