REVIEW: ‘Find Your Friends’ Is A Very Messy Good-For-Her Film

Almost nothing good comes from a toxic friend group going on vacation in the middle of nowhere. Find Your Friends, written and directed by Izabel Pakzad, captures the madness of trying to navigate a toxic friend group. However, the messiness of the narrative and script makes it hard to fully invest in the film.

Find Your Friends follows Amber (Helena Howard), Lavinia (Bella Thorne), Zosia (Zión Moreno), Lola (Chloe Cherry), and Maddy (Sophia Ali) as they go on a girls’ trip that turns deadly when they’re harassed and attacked by the locals. Instead of being a strong unit of friends, the toxicity in the group causes them to be at odds at the worst of times.

A thriller-horror film such as this one needs to rely heavily on the characters and the investment built towards their well-being for there to be proper payoff. Unfortunately, it’s hard to fully cling to every character because they mostly blend together as Gen Z party girls, with little else to set them apart.

Some people shouldn’t be friends, and Find Your Friends proves it.

Find Your Friends kicks off with a daytime yacht party with the girls, who are interested in nothing but having a good time. We’re immediately thrust into a haze of drugs, liquor, toxicity, and boy-crazy conversations that start to get old relatively quickly. 

What starts off as a daytime adventure for the friend group quickly turns into a nightmare when Amber’s friends leave her alone with a predatory man. It’s one of the first signs of toxicity in the group, and it casts a bad light on who is actually looking out for Amber’s best interests. Especially when Amber has a justified outburst about what happened to her, leading to them being kicked out of the party.

After leaving the party, we get the road-trip antics that lead up to their stay in an isolated rented vacation home. Instead of everyone properly checking in on Amber, as she’s been scattered since the yacht party, the friend group insists on partying and having a good time. 

Helena Howard is the best part of the film, with her performance capturing a specific kind of turmoil.

Helena Howard’s performance is by far the strongest of this small and diverse cast. She captures a specific type of turmoil that makes you root for her to find some solace and peace. We know as the audience that she’s struggling, and we’re forced to watch her friends fail to rally behind her again and again. 

Despite the solid performance from Howard, the diversity of the cast, and some stylish scenes, the film isn’t narratively cohesive. Nor does it feel like it fully earns its runtime. Find Your Friends presents us with ideas about friendships among women, party culture, struggling to find yourself, and what it means to deal with the aftermath of assault, but it doesn’t expand enough on them. Unfortunately, the film is mostly ideas without a firm and steady plot to follow. 

This feels especially so when the violence and terror kick in, and we’re left with more moments to feel puzzled than secure in the events that are unfolding. With this being billed as a thriller, that’s a relatively noticeable issue. There should’ve been more thrills, more excitement, and more chaos that blended into the good for her trope of it all. 

There are some strong ideas presented that are never followed through on, or arrive at their destination.

It’s not to say that Bella Thorne, Zión Moreno, Chloe Cherry, or Sophia Ali bring nothing to the table. They all add their own individual energy when they have enough screen time for us to get to know their characters somewhat. Ultimately, however, the spotlight is on Howard because she’s the character we’re meant to be most invested in. Whether that be her survival or her “good-for-her” journey in the back half of the film. 

Find Your Friends isn’t a total flop without anything to cling to, nor is it the worst Gen Z-focused thriller or horror film you can watch. But the core plot is middling, and the situations the girls find themselves in become more grating than thrilling at a certain point. Other than its commitment to being very youth-focused, Pakzad’s writing could’ve used some tightening and follow-through on the thought-provoking topics it tried to address. 

The film is one to watch if you want to support women behind the camera, as well as a cast that consists mostly of women of color and queer women. For folks who are itching for a tightened narrative, Find Your Friends may not be the road trip for you. But if you’re looking for a good-for-her journey with sprinkles of violence, then maybe you won’t turn the car around. 

Find Your Friends premieres on Shudder on June 12, 2026.