As a teenager, everything can feel impossibly important and few things are more all-consuming than the relationship with your first best friend. Molly Manners’ charming debut feature Extra Geography beautifully captures the intense highs and lows of that relationship, while recognising how easily affection and competition can become intertwined during adolescence.
Based on a short story by Rose Tremain, the film follows Minna (Galaxie Clear) and Flic (Marni Duggan) as they seemingly move in perfect harmony through their all-girls boarding school in the north of England. The girls excel both in the classroom and on the lacrosse field and have designs on making it to Oxbridge. In an effort to prove themselves “worldly” and “well-rounded”, they hatch a scheme to fall in love, targeting the first person they set eyes on, which happens to be their unwitting geography teacher, Ms Delavigne (Alice Englert).
It’s fittingly absurd that the girls would turn something as messy as adolescence into another academic endeavour. But their attempt to approach romance as an experiment also exposes the competitive streak lurking beneath their seemingly effortless friendship. Once a group of boys are brought in for a co-ed production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the cracks really start to show as the girls begin to realise that maybe they’re not coming-of-age at the same time.
While the playful narrative is smartly conceived, it is the bond between Minna and Flic that is the heart of the film and it is brilliantly realised. Clear and Duggan, both in their big screen debut, are incredible finds that share an easy, genuine chemistry, ensuring their bond feels truly lived-in and natural. Their chemistry is underpinned by a smart screenplay from Succession writer Miriam Battye, who finds nuances that make their dynamic feel all the more real.
Minna is the more confident, more dominant of the two while Flic, who is at the lavish school on a scholarship, is less secure in herself. When Minna begins to upstage Flic, both in the school play and with the boys, it brings to the fore the imbalance that has until now sat below the surface of their relationship. Both girls become cruel to each other in their own way, but there is no real villain in the collapse of their friendship. This is what makes it more affecting, as Minna’s growing confidence and Flic’s deepening insecurities pull the girls apart.
In her feature debut, Manners proves to be a sure hand, deftly balancing the film’s tender examination of friendship with its often hilariously bitter comedy. She directs with a quirky visual style that brings to mind early Wes Anderson, while the film’s deadpan humour and heightened adolescent absurdity recall Rushmore. Beneath its playful surface, however, Extra Geography remains grounded in relatable feelings and experiences, capturing the quiet melancholy of discovering that growing up can mean growing apart, even from the person who once seemed inseparable from you.
Extra Geography is screening as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival from 15th – 17th August.
EIFF 2026 — count: 6
