Sensitive Enn (Alex Sharp) and his punk-mad mates are doing their best to tag along with the in-crowd in the legendarily raucous summer of 1977. The allure of the opposite sex and the riotous energy of the new music add a note of hormone-drenched terror to every interaction, but it’s not until a fateful post-gig attempt to find an afterparty that the real story begins. The three lads stumble upon a house inhabited by a bunch of dreamy, Californian-accented beings, all of them resplendent in brightly coloured costumes and rather tactile for ‘70s Croydon. Based on the short story of the same name by Neil Gaiman, How To Talk To Girls At Parties hits most of the beats expected for rites-of-passage films while offering a fresh, funny spin on familiar tropes. Fanning and Sharp are a delight, individually and together; her luminous, wide-eyed wonder hides a strength of character that foreshadows the leader she might become to her race of nihilistic castaways, while his smitten, earnest Enn is the perfect foil. Joanna Scanlan brings a winning combination of warmth and repressed anger to her role as Enn’s mum, determined to chase a new romantic opportunity of her own after years of solitude, while Nicole Kidman has enormous fun as the queen of the local punk scene; they don’t call her Boadicea for nothing. Her confrontation with Ruth Wilson’s glacial alien vamp is a particular highlight. The film wrings some good laughs from the combination of achingly hip posturing and clueless teenage silliness that makes punk one of the more endearing – and enduring – cultural movements of a decade stuffed with them. (“I used to be in Despair…and now I’m in another band called Lipstick which formed from the remnants of Despair.”) Gaiman’s obvious fondness for the scene of his own youth has made its way to the screen undimmed, and the bunting-bedecked Croydon of that Jubilee year is lovingly recreated. Sandy Powell’s eye-catching, vibrant costumes draw a sharp visual distinction between the glamorous alien visitors and their awestruck human counterparts. In the end, as ever, it all comes back to love. Boys and girls may feel like they’re hankering after a different species, but How To Talk To Girls At Parties reminds us that we’re all human under the skin: even if we’re, er, actually aliens. Enn puts it best when he advises a lust-crazed mate: “Just remember that you’re you, and she’s her, and together… that’ll be another thing.” How To Talk To Girls At Parties is in UK cinemas from today.
