Extra Geography film review: Unfiltered tales of girlhood
Tackling the trials and tribulations of formative female friendships, sexuality and selfhood, Molly Manners’ self-assured drama is unabashedly messy and sings with personality
Bafta-winning director Molly Manners makes her feature debut with coming-of-age drama Extra Geography. Minna (Galaxie Clear) and Flic (Marni Duggan) are Cambridge-bound, eschewing boys and fun to focus on their studies at a prestigious all-girls boarding school. But the pair’s latest self-improvement project changes everything when they decide to make themselves fall in love with their frumpy geography teacher Miss Delavigne (Alice Englert), and once-hidden desires and envies bubble to the surface.
Manners imbues this tale of fraught female friendship with an offbeat charm, complete with ornate title cards and classical-inspired score. While it sticks firmly to the coming-of-age genre’s conventions and plot points, Extra Geography offers less certainty than others of its ilk, to its benefit. The film plays with relationships, identity and sexuality, but never forces itself into neat conclusions. The final result is painfully relatable in the best way and doubly so for anyone who’s ever attended an all-girls school.
Extra Geography, Cameo, 15 August, 4pm; 16 August, 10.30pm; Cineworld, 16 August, 8.30pm; Filmhouse, 17 August, 12.15pm.