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We Are Your Friends, written and directed by Max Joseph (Garden of Eden, Saab Story), follows four friends living in The Valley, trying to make it big in music on the back of DJ Cole’s (Zac Efron) talents. Cue drug-induced euphoric scene where Cole manages to befriend a bigshot has-been DJ, James (Wes Bentley) just after falling for his gorgeous girlfriend, Sophie (Emily Ratajkowski).

We Are Your Friends is first and foremost formulaic. The four friends establish their roles – the lead, the best friend who’s trouble, the bad guy and the nice one – within thirty seconds of the opening shot. The plot – bright new talent being trained and eventually overtaking the mentor – has been done to death and the love triangle of Cole, James and Sophie is far from inventive.
That’s not to discredit the actors: Zac Efron really wins you over to a character who could easily be a flat, 2D good guy, while Emily Ratajkowski plays a character far too interesting to just be the love interest, but is never given the screentime or script development to go beyond that. Smaller characters such as Cole’s troubled best friend, Mason (Jonny Weston), play their characters in such an interesting way that they too could have added to and made this film more than it is, and this misuse of talent is disappointing.

However you can forgive the film’s shortcomings if you focus on the music; the music is the making of this film. Done by Fat Segal (best known for his composing on the TV show Skins) the music is new electronic at its best. To a degree how much you like house and electronic music will affect your enjoyment of it, but the use of it to create a unique and distinctive score is worth seeing, regardless of your tastes . Over many bland and predictable scenes the music drives you to care and focus on the film’s events. It fits far more fluidly than I ever would have guessed house music could: I left the film uninterested in seeing the film again, but sure I would download the soundtrack.

This is not a movie that will blow your mind in any great way but the actors are hot and talented, the music is great and the plot is fun – which in the end really all equate to a solid film. And to give this movie its credit, it does have slow motion shots of Emily Ratajkowski’s boobs and unnecessary shots of Zac Efron taking showers in equal numbers.