Gaynord, however, has a different background. “I grew up in a town hall,” he says. “My mother is a cleaner, my father is a taxi driver, in Manchester. My school was not particularly good.” What he and “the Toms” had in common, he said, was a tendency to fear and contemplation.
Material circumstances are at the root of the “existential anxiety” that plagues many young British men, according to Alex Holmes, the author of “Time to Talk: How Men Think About Love, Belonging and Connection.”
In a recent video interview, Holmes described turning 30 as “the benchmark in which everything has to change drastically.” Not meeting certain milestones † such as taking out a mortgage, getting married and starting a family — can lead men to a lot of anxiety around a “feeling of catching up,” he said.
In “All My Friends Hate Me,” Pete finds himself at his friend’s parents’ house, drinking the whiskey from his friend’s parents. As the weekend progresses, his friends also mock him in a scathing comedy roast that Pete finds very unfunny. It’s a nod to the cruel humor that surrounded Stourton as a student, which was really “a way to rip someone off so the jokes aren’t directed at you in the end,” he said.
The infantile nature of the weekend becomes an additional source of stress for Pete, as does the presence of Harry (Dustin Demri-Burns), a new addition to the group, and his ex and current girlfriends. The film finds comedy in the tension between the intensity of Pete’s suffering at it all and the possibility that it’s all in his head.
“It’s very funny,” Stourton said, “to watch the white privileged man experience being lit by gas.”
After all, “he has no real problems in his life,” Gaynord said. “I think it’s very cathartic to laugh about that.”
