Extra Geography - British Film Festival 2026
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https://www.palacecinemas.com.au/movies/bff26-extra-geography
Date Reviewed: 29/10/2026
Reviewed by Sandra Lee
Molly Manners’s adaptation of Rose Tremain’s 2007 short story of the same title opens on a stone, castle-like boarding school perched atop a gently sloping landscape, ringed by expansive lawns, carefully tended gardens and towering trees. Beneath an overcast Northern English sky, the school's imposing architecture signifying a place governed by longstanding customs, expectations and a firmly established social order.
It is here we meet Year 10 best friends Minna and Flic, played by Marni Duggan and Galaxie Clear. They are inseparable, bonded by status, intelligence and a shared dream of winning a place at Cambridge. A montage of jump cuts fills us in on their life together, from maths textbooks and lacrosse fields to the dining hall and shared dorms. Nothing, it seems, could come between them. Until an extracurricular program demands their attention and, with it, a question: how does one fall in love?
Their joint quest to unravel love’s mystery coincides with their school joining forces with the neighbouring St Jude’s boys’ school to stage Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Manners’s storytelling is sharp, witty and thoughtful. Structured across four acts, like a play, the film sees the girls test their friendship through an almost academic study of love, all while juggling classroom politics, grades and their futures. Can one extracurricular project really pull them apart?
Duggan and Clear’s on-screen chemistry captures the rawness of teenage friendship, with a tension that is both convincing and comical. We are drawn into a world where doing everything together is brutally challenged: Minna is cast as the lead in the school play, while scholarship recipient Flic is relegated to the non-speaking role of tree and mound. For adults watching who haven’t read the story, there is a quiet ache in seeing the events unfold, testing the hypothesis that as we grow older, we drift from the friends we once adored. Yet the film’s twists and turns keep us wondering how many obstacles can pile up before confessions, forgiveness and a restored BFF status slip out of reach.
The film’s greatest strength is its pacing. Its sharp wit, camera pans and clean jump cuts are a small nod to Wes Anderson-style storytelling, giving the whole piece an animated, polished rhythm. Where it may lose some viewers is in the absurdity of two teenage girls mechanically hunting for love by studying love stories from the library and mimicking their symptoms, before projecting them onto their geography teacher. Yet perhaps that is precisely the joke. It is certainly in keeping with the heightened imagination of a 15-year-old. Whether you are charmed or put off by it, the result is a bittersweet tale of friendship and everything that can get in its way.
Verdict: Extra Geography is a sharp study of teenage friendship and its fragility. If you are up for a nostalgic trip back through high school years, school plays, boys and dramas, with a generous slice of comedy, this is the film for you.
Reviewed by Sandra Lee