Release Date – TBC, Cert – TBC, Run-time – 1 hour 18 minutes, Director – Bradley Banton
A group of friends (Tuwaine Barrett, Dipo Ola, Jordan Peters) reunite and travel to Copenhagen to celebrate one of them opening an art gallery exhibition.
With a portrait look and comments scrolling past in the lower left-hand corner More Life is intended to be like an Instagram Live hangout movie. Indeed it feels just like something that would crop up randomly in my recommended feed because it’s been popular elsewhere. Even more, throughout More Life’s mere 78-minute run-time I found myself asking the question I perhaps ask myself most when scrolling through social media: ‘why do I care?’
As friends Welton (Tuwaine Barreett), Damien (Dipo Ola) and Kieran (Jordan Peters) reunite to celebrate one of their unit having an exhibition open at an art gallery, they document their time wandering around Copenhagen, eating in restaurants and generally bantering with each other. The opening scene is a five minute ramble that seems to be directionless, before ending with the punchline “that’s why I called my cat Bolognese.” It’s an amusing payoff that got a chuckle out of me, the only time until the very end.
Unfortunately, the film follows the course of the build-up with a series of meandering rambles with very little to cause interest. I realise that I’m probably not the target audience for the film but I couldn’t help but be utterly bored by the presence of the characters and whatever they found to get up to to fill both their and the film’s run-time. Whether there was meant to be something else going on, I don’t know. It certainly didn’t seem like it. Amongst my confusion as to what I was meant to care about I simply wandered what was actually happening on some occasions.
In closing we see the events of the film again, this time played out sped-up and in reverse. A closing montage that feels as if it wants to make a bigger point about friendship that the previous 70-minutes have done. Perhaps watching this with an audience would make for a more inclusive experience, something more communal that adds to the intended hangout nature of the film and the livestream aspect that leads it. However, how much more it would bring to a series of aimless activities and conversations I’m doubtful of, especially with the lack of laughs which stem from them. Again, More Life may well work for those who watch and actively engage with social media livestreams, but for me, who doesn’t, I just found this to be an utterly dull, aimless display of rambling.
A last-minute run-down doesn’t bring a tale of friendship to the previous 70-minutes of More Life, as characters wander around Copenhagen creating little interest or amusement in their extended conversations and activities. Like much on social media, it’s something to scroll past.
Just A Little Bit Random 