Year:  2023

Director:  Damian Hussey

Rated:  18+

Release:  April 24, 2023

Running time: 89 minutes

Worth: $13.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth

Cast:
Emily Rowbottom, Stephanie Kutty, Paris Moletti, Montana Jones, Trent Owers

Intro:
… so relatable that there is very good chance you either know people like this, or you are people like this.

Brie (Emily Rowbottom) and Abby (Stephanie Kutty) love drinking like a fish loves water. Having first tried it when they were young, it seems like there’s nothing that makes life better than bending the elbow at a boozer. So, when Brie looks set to have caught her dream job, the women unsurprisingly decide to go out for a big one on the Gold Coast.

Directed by Damian Hussey (The Lost One), the premise of Girls’ Night Out is pretty much all there in the title. Like Justin Kerrigan’s cult pill popping classic Human Traffic, we join Abby and Brie painting the town red from first drink to last ciggy. As the night progresses, they bump into various friends and acquaintances, including Brie’s Tinder date Marcus (Paris Moletti) and fellow clubber Holly (Montana Jones). As with any night out though, there are unfortunately potential dangers ahead for the women. Like creepy Ken (Trent Owers) and Big Red (Emily Georgiou), who has a grudge against Brie and Abby.

Once the girls step out of the door, the film is imbued with a jovial tone that suits our preconceived ideas of a good night out. Brie and Abby are having a blast and so do we, as Hussey dots their evening with numerous relatable tropes. There’s the running gag of a drink changing price every time Brie goes to the bar. There’s a bloke who is impervious to the fact that his conversation starters are so boring women leave him mid-sentence. To be fair, anyone that defends Jar Jar Binks probably deserves it.

However, there’s the downsides too, as Hussey wants to highlight our relationship with alcohol. Big Red, for example, gets increasingly enraged with Abby and Brie, stewing over some slight against her that they don’t seem to remember. At any other time of day, she could probably let things wash over her, but that becomes so much harder when inebriated.

Elsewhere, a fear of drink spiking leads to paranoia all round. While the film still keeps its realistic humour, darker themes are ever more present.

So dark in fact, that there will be some who take umbrage at the film’s ending. Seemingly coming out of the blue, Hussey has actually left breadcrumbs to his denouement, and it certainly colours all the events that came before. While it highlights a depressing reality of nights out for some women, it also manages to feel like a gotcha moment for shock value. Obviously, the director’s intentions are made clear by the final block of text that sees the film out, but your mileage is definitely going to vary on this key scene.

With that said, let’s return to the film’s positives in the shape of its leads, Rowbottom and Kutty. Their naturalistic approach to their characters means that we genuinely feel like they’ve known each other forever and really do live a life offscreen. The women they portray are allowed to talk explicitly about sex, and burp in each other’s faces when things get a little tense. They are so relatable that there is very good chance you either know people like this, or you are people like this.

Overall, despite arguably not sticking the landing, Girls’ Night Out is certainly going to stir up some conversation in the pub afterwards.

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