In 2012, Apple released a new application called “Find My Friends” with the purpose of sharing locations with family and friends for real time tracking purposes. Find YOUR Friends is a “not-so-real-time” interpretation of how you should never treat your family, or in this case …your friends. Perhaps this should be renamed “Trust Your Friends?”  

College grads Amber, Maddy, Lola, Lavinia and Zosia are party animals. Heavy drinking, scantily clad, social mongers who are insistent on turning every situation into a full-scale event to an extreme level of hedonism. Upon their recent shindig aboard a private yacht surrounded by several dozen revelers, sensitive Amber notices her ex-beau Tommy, entangled with another girl, thereby sending her into the arms of Tye, a handsome nobody who wants to engage in a quick game of adding notches to his bed post. When Amber’s entourage takes an assumed cue to leave her alone with Tye, the scenario turns dark and defenseless. And her first traumatic ordeal begins to destabilize her, especially realizing that her unreliable, self-absorbed friends remain oblivious to her plight.  

The girls are on route for their annual getaway (yes, Lola…annual means ONCE a year), set up at an Airbnb in the desert. Within seconds of their arrival, drinks are flowing, drugs are ingested and the smutty sex talk continues as it did throughout the car ride to this isolated destination. Yes, these females are uncouth, vulgar and crass. Worse yet – they are irritating AF! But that tangent aside, concentration goes back onto Amber and her inner demons eating away at her psyche which she drowns with constant shots and hallucinogens. The more she tries to dull the pain, the harder it hits upon sobering up.  

A new night, a new party and the girls kick start the evening with lines of cocaine provided by a group of locals hoping it will amount to more fun. The smug, self-indulgent instincts of this spoiled circle take over, and they dismiss the guys with casual contempt, as though their presence can be erased the moment it no longer suits them. Of course, this behavior does not sit well with them, as we will soon find out. Doing their drugs and blowing them off as disposable trash? Oh, hell no! How disrespectful!  

Lavinia meets up with her Coachella crush, Cameron, and Amber is pursued by his friend Coby who seems to be hopeful suitor from the thoughtful conversation being had. Sobriety, careers, authenticity and finding oneself all surface over the course of their discussion, exposing their vulnerabilities which connects them mentally and physically. However, Amber is unable to escape her recent violation and although it may be the “molly” she downed earlier, a humiliating scene follows which once again…alienates her from the girls.  

There are so many errors in judgement within this dysfunctional group that I’m unsure where to begin. Why the disinterest in Amber’s well-being or what led her to smash a glass bowl over Tye’s head? What sparked her abrupt meltdown with Coby to cause a public spectacle? And the worst…allowing Amber to leave this gathering in the desert, alone in the middle of the night. Are these “friends” for real?

The terror starts to unfurl when the “trash” guys return in full throttle to torment the girls throughout the desert by foot and a road rage pursuit which brutally surmounts into a chaotic climax. Even with the overwhelming amount of drugs and booze, nothing can numb the distress of a terrified clique trying to outrun ragtag assailants wanting revenge. It’s a cringy conclusion to the gradual dissipation of these besties, but betrayal has a way of turning wounded friendship into something feral. Because nothing exposes the fragility of friendship quite like fear.