Director: Izabel Pakzad
Writer: Izabel Pakzad
Stars: Helena Howard, Bella Thorne, Zión Moreno
Synopsis: Amber and her friends visit Joshua Tree for a fun girls’ trip but face hostility from locals. As tensions escalate and Amber’s dark past surfaces, their rebellion ignites – turning their desert getaway into a jaw-dropping game of revenge.
There is no shortage of thrillers about young people making bad decisions in isolated places, but Find Your Friends tries to carve out its own identity by filtering familiar genre beats through a more personal, female perspective. Marking the feature debut of writer-director Izabel Pakzad, the film has an impressive festival pedigree, including TIFF Industry Selects, Fantasia, Sitges, Fantastic Fest and Torino, and it’s easy to see why it generated attention. Even when it stumbles, it is never lacking in ambition.
The story follows Amber (Helena Howard) and a group of friends heading to Joshua Tree for what is meant to be a carefree weekend of parties, drugs, and escapism. That sense of freedom quickly disappears as they encounter increasingly aggressive locals and buried tensions within the friendship group surface. As Amber’s traumatic past comes forward, the film gradually shifts away from its party-movie aesthetic and into something much darker than expected. Pakzad has spoken about the film being inspired by her own frightening experience of being harassed while visiting Joshua Tree with friends, and that personal connection gives Find Your Friends an authenticity that elevates much of its early tension.
Howard delivers a committed central performance, grounding Amber’s emotional journey even when the narrative becomes deliberately disorientating. Around her, the ensemble cast, including Bella Thorne, Chloe Cherry, Zion Moreno, and Sophia Ali, captures the messy, often exhausting dynamics of a friendship group built as much on distraction as genuine connection. But there were times I did question if this group of friends were actually friends. As the story develops, they don’t have each other’s back, are very selfish, and lack basic empathy. Therefore it’s hard to build any rapport or character allegiance. Also, all their accents sound exactly the same, which felt one-dimensional and quite annoying. They sound like the girls in the song #SELFIE. And several supporting characters remain underdeveloped, leaving you wanting more from them to fully invest in the story and the girl’s survival.
Visually, Joshua Tree becomes far more than just an attractive backdrop, with its vast open spaces creating an uneasy contrast between freedom and vulnerability. The cinematography embraces both the beauty and isolation of the desert, while the increasingly chaotic party scenes blur into something almost dreamlike before descending into outright nightmare. There are moments where the film recalls the neon-soaked recklessness of Spring Breakers, one of the influences Pakzad has openly acknowledged, and Find Your Friends tries very hard to find its own path. I did enjoy the rich colors used in the party scenes, from deep blues to dark reds, this bold use did feel fresh.
You can tell the themes of consent and misogyny (at young women) are being explored, but never fully investigated. The trio of local men are predators, but we don’t learn why. As the narrative continues, the script could have been done with more depth, giving the characters some real, gritty personalities. The young women come across as simple party-girls, and the dialogue is a lot of unanswered, repetitive questions, and swearing, and feels very surface level. Other than Amber, I cannot tell you what makes the other girls tick.
The final act is undoubtedly memorable, delivering the kind of provocative escalation Pakzad clearly set out to achieve. Whether audiences find it cathartic or excessive will likely depend on their tolerance for uncompromising genre cinema. Drawing inspiration from the confrontational spirit of New French Extremity, this is where the film is at its strongest. I wish the whole of it had this pace and purpose. Pakzad has said she wanted to challenge the traditional “final girl” archetype rather than simply invert it, creating women who reclaim power through anger, violence, and chaos instead of moral purity. It’s an intriguing idea, and one that gives the film an edge beyond standard survival horror.
Find Your Friends is an imperfect but undeniably distinctive debut. It tackles trauma, female rage, and toxic escapism with confidence, even if its execution doesn’t always match the strength of its ideas. There is enough style, ambition and nerve here to make it worth seeking out. It may not be the best feminist film out there, but it announces Izabel Pakzad as a filmmaker with a bold voice and a willingness to take risks – qualities that make her future work worth watching.
