This modern, Cotswolds-set teen movie has failed to learn the lessons of the past in its outdated attitudes to
Women, with little real insight on show
The surprise success of After We Collided may herald a
box office trend for YA romantic drama, but this debut feature is ill-suited to capitalise. Despite being another contemporary tale of lovelorn teenagers, Philophobia hails from a bygone era to which we must never return.
Joshua Glenister stars as Kai, an aspiring writer whose coming-of-age in the Cotswolds is very obviously based on the writer-director’s own. Kai wiles away his A-level revision time smoking spliffs on the library roof with his two mates, mooning over a girl and dreaming of escape from “this shithole”. There are other characters, too, but none of them have much in the way of hopes, dreams or interiority. They’re punchlines for the kind of classist sheep-shagging jokes that even The Inbetweeners would consider lame. Or, like the rolling fields and sun-dappled lake, they’re just another pretty part of the scenery.