Gate Crash

‘Would you choose them as your mates?’ asks this dark and dreamlike snapshot of a teenage friendship group.

After the end-of-year ball, several teens set out to shake off the dust of high school with quiet kick-ons in a palatial house outside Wellington. The vibes shift with the arrival of Yannick, a dropout who’s determined to amp up the party, whose blustering insistence on more, more, more threatens to spill over into blind rage.

A mentee of New Zealand grande dame Jane Campion (Top of the Lake: China Girl, MIFF 2017; An Angel at My Table, MIFF 1990), writer/director Paloma Schneideman summons menacingly moody atmospherics, conjuring both the dread of impending violence and the sublimity of loose nights. Impressive performances coalesce to create a cast of fully realised characters facing the dawning realisation that the only thing they have in common might be proximity.