‘Extra Geography’ Review: Molly Manners’ Delightful Female Friendship Movie Shines With Original Wit and Disarming British Humor

Key Highlights

• On top of the burdens you’re born into, how do you simultaneously navigate schoolwork, peer drama, the many mysteries of your budding sexuality, and the unknowable land of boys while also trying to stay loyal to your friendships and be true to your own identity?
• And on that note, have you figured out who you are yet?
• Related Stories 'Carousel' Review: Chris Pine and Jenny Slate in a Painfully Languid Neorealist Drama of Lonely-Hearts Romance Zayn Debuts New Music, Plays for the Stans at Intimate Opening Night of Las Vegas Residency: Concert Review Based on Rose Tremain’s dreamlike 2007 short story with the same name, Molly Manners’ debut feature “Extra Geography” (adapted by “Succession” scribe Miriam Battye) conquers these treacherous coming-of-age waters with a prose so sharp-tongued, timelessly wise and funny that this Gen-Xer felt as if it arrived to fill a cinematic void in her own teen-hood retroactively, just like other comparable movies this side of “Ghost World.” In that, the first quarter of the 21st century has indeed been good to movies about female friendships, with “Extra Geography” joining the ranks of instant greats like “Lady Bird,” “Booksmart” and “Frances Ha.” Popular on Variety Then again, the proudly British text and aesthetics of Manners and Battye’s “Extra Geography” charts its own fresh territory, like a contemporary Jane Austen novel unfolding within the walls of an English school.
• Stylistically in step with Tremain’s nostalgic tale, it’s rooted in the palpable pains of youth, while hovering slightly above the realities of everyday life like a cheeky fantasy.
• At the film’s center are the lovably gruff duo Flic and Minna, played with precision and stiff-upper-lipped hilarity by newcomers Marni Duggan and Galaxie Clear respectively.