Guy Friends (2024) Movie Review

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Plot Summary

Jaime is a guy’s girl. She is mostly comfortable around guys, and one of her best guy friends, Ted, has a girlfriend named Sandy who is trying to wiggle her way into being an exception. It doesn’t take quickly, and Jaime has an aversion to her at first, but as Jaime’s boyfriend Patrick calls for them to be on a break, she posts that online, and nearly every guy she knows confesses his feelings, Jaime has to deal with the possibility that these men were never her friends, just waiting for Patrick to mess up.

Cast and Characters

Character’s Name	Actor’s Name
Jaime	Kavita Jariwala
Patrick	Michael Dahlgren
Sandy	Katie Muldowney
Ted	Justin Clark

Jaime

If you are familiar with the characters Nina Dobrev usually plays, imagine her as an Indian girl. Someone who is overtly sweet and inquisitive and seems able to fit in with no matter what group she is in while being herself.

But focusing on Jaime as an individual, she was raised in a single-father home, plans to become an architect, and exclusively has had male friends to the point that she is uncomfortable when just around women.

Patrick

Patrick is Jaime’s boyfriend and lawyer.

Sandy

Sandy is Ted’s girlfriend. She is new to New York but has the kind of attitude that would make you think she has been there all of her life.

Ted

Ted is one of Jaime’s many guy friends, but perhaps is one of the only ones who doesn’t have a romantic interest in her.

Review

Our Rating: Positive (Worth Seeing)

Good If You Like

• Movies focused on young women, with them not looking for a guy to be with

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Highlights

Sandy

What will make you fall for Sandy is that, while she has the spirit of “I’m not like other girls” because she is uncouth and isn’t adhering to being ladylike, she isn’t trying to be one of the guys either. In many ways, Sandy is still a girls’ girl, it is just, she has no desire to be dainty, prim and proper. It doesn’t suit her, and as Ted shows, she doesn’t need to be that type of person to find a good guy and be adored.

Which, again, doesn’t mean she is trying to be gross, fart in her hand and put it in Ted’s face, or anything like that. Instead, she exists outside of the tropes most exist in. So as she goes from making jokes at Ted’s expense to being enamoured with turtles, helping Jaime when Patrick is randomly seen, to trying to help Jaime make girlfriends, there is nothing you can say beyond Sandy being refreshing and different from what you’d assume she’d be.

Ted Being An Exception

It would be very easy to make it so every last guy in Jaime’s life was waiting for her to be single or in a murky place where she was on a break, but Ted wasn’t. In addition, while Jaime is presented as the ideal, since she is very invested in the men, kind to them, and more, Ted likes Sandy.

Similar to how Sandy isn’t locked into a trope, neither is Ted as he has different interests, responds to Sandy differently than you may expect when she does get weird or gross, and helps you to understand that all men aren’t the same and that they can be platonic friends with women.

Jaime Might Be Naïve But She Isn’t Dumb

Like how Sandy brings a certain level of expectations when you meet her, Jaime could do the same. With her being sweet, bubbly, and seemingly unaware of how her friendliness has gotten multiple men hooked, you could be led to believe she isn’t only naïve but also dumb. However, while you might initially be presented with a classic trope, things evolve to the point that you can’t present that argument.

You would imagine Sandy being a guy’s girl, shunning female friendship, and not being aware that they are considered attractive. Yet, instead, it is someone girly who doesn’t push the idea that she is unattractive or anything of the sort. Instead, in her mindset, she is the girl guys come to when they want to ask about their girlfriends and do things which may not seem the most macho.

It’s easy, in some ways, to imagine this would allow for some form of naivety, that being approachable and likeable allows these guys to feel safe enough to be vulnerable. Yet, while naïve about how some men play the long game, she isn’t dumb. When all is revealed, she does her best to use her emotional intelligence to let the guys down in a way that won’t make them a threat—especially the three who know where she lives.

But, thankfully, “Guy Friends” isn’t the type of movie where there is a need to take note of one guy who hacked a ride-sharing app to see her every day or the other setups which could lead to situations seen in the film “Cat Person.” Instead, we see a young woman who has to adapt how she interacts with men and develop her social intelligence when interacting with women.

On The Fence

Does Jaime Live In A Bubble?

Perhaps the sole thing that may raise an eyebrow in “Guy Friends” is that none of the guys with a crush on Jaime are anything but White presenting, and outside of her father, who is never on screen, everyone she interacts with is White, despite her being in New York City.

Background Information

Film Length	1 Hour 24 Minutes
Date Released	May 31, 2024
Distributor	Freestyle Digital Media
Director(s)	Jonathan Smith
Writer(s)	Jonathan Smith
Based On Work By	Chris Siemasko, Jonathan Smith
Genre(s)	Comedy, Young Adult
Content Rating	Not Rated
Content Information
Dialog	Cursing
Violence	N/A
Sexual Content	N/A
Miscellaneous	Drinking

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