Directed by Molly Manners and penned by the collaborative team of Rose Tremain and Miriam Battye, Extra Geography (2026) is a poignant and biting British drama that captures the volatile landscape of adolescent girlhood. Produced by BFI Distribution, Brock Media, and Film4, the film arrived at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival with significant buzz, centering on the lives of two teenage girls, Flic (Marni Duggan) and Minna (Galaxie Clear), at a traditional English boarding school. The story follows their final term as they embark on an ambitious and perhaps misguided summer project: the deliberate mission to "fall in love."
Supported by a cast that includes Alice Englert as Miss Delavigne and a scene-stealing Aoife Riddell as the overlooked Phoebe, Extra Geography marks a significant moment for Manners, who transitions from her previous work into a more cinematic, textured exploration of feminine angst. Released to the public following its January 2026 premiere, the film manages to feel both contemporary in its emotional intelligence and timeless in its aesthetic execution.
Story and Screenplay: The Cartography of Growing Apart
The narrative engine of Extra Geography is fueled by a deceptively simple premise: the "summer project." By framing the pursuit of love as an academic or extracurricular endeavor, Tremain and Battye’s script immediately exposes the youthful delusion that life can be organized into neat, achievable goals. Flic and Minna are not just friends; they are co-conspirators in the construction of their own identities, and their project is as much about proving their maturity to themselves as it is about finding a partner.
The pacing of the film is deliberate, mirroring the slow-burn atmosphere of a boarding school where the days are long but the years are short. What begins as a sharp-tongued comedy, filled with the kind of rapid-fire British humor that characterizes modern young-adult cinema, eventually settles into something far more melancholy. The script’s greatest strength lies in its refusal to offer easy answers or a Hollywood-style "artistic triumph." Instead, it builds toward a resolution that feels "glumly credible," acknowledging that the person you are at sixteen is often a version of yourself that must eventually be discarded.
Acting and Characters: Fresh Faces and a Breakout Heart
The film belongs to its newcomers. Marni Duggan and Galaxie Clear deliver performances that are uncompromisingly energetic, capturing the specific, often cruel confidence of teenage girls who believe they are the smartest people in the room. Duggan’s Flic is the more assertive of the two, while Clear’s Minna provides a softer, though no less complex, counterpoint. There is a palpable chemistry between them that feels lived-in, capturing the intense, almost suffocating intimacy that defines female friendships at that age.
However, the true emotional anchor of the film is Aoife Riddell as Phoebe. While Flic and Minna are often busy playing the roles of the protagonists in their own imagined movies, Phoebe is the one dealing with the messy, un-storyboarded reality of being a social outcast. Riddell brings a "perspicacious" quality to the role, portraying Phoebe’s desperate desire for connection with a vulnerability that is painful to watch. Whenever she is on screen, the film feels its most "real," serving as a reminder that for every girl who feels like a hero, there is another being rudely rebuffed in the wings. Alice Englert and Shvorne Marks provide steadying support as the faculty, but the spotlight never strays far from the students.
Direction and Technical Aspects: A Timeless Boarding School Canvas
Molly Manners exhibits a confident directorial hand, choosing to strip away the distractions of modern technology to focus on the human geography of her characters. By omitting smartphones and social media, Manners creates a "timeless" environment where the stakes of a conversation or a look are amplified. The film’s visual composition is precise, almost clinical at times, reflecting the structured environment of the school itself.
The cinematography uses the English boarding school setting not just as a backdrop, but as a character in its own right. The wheaty, natural light and the pristine lensing emphasize the beauty of the landscape while simultaneously highlighting the isolation of the characters within it. There is a sense that every frame has been carefully planned, which occasionally makes the film feel a bit too tidy, but this serves the story’s themes of controlled environments and the chaos that eventually erupts when those controls fail. The editing is particularly effective during the transition from the girls’ humorous exploits to the more somber final act, allowing the emotional weight of their changing friendship to sink in without feeling forced.
Extra Geography (2026) Official First Look Clip
Music and Atmosphere: Wistful Echoes and British Reserve
The atmosphere of Extra Geography is one of curated nostalgia. The sound design captures the unique acoustics of old school halls and the rustle of the English countryside, creating a mood that is both cozy and claustrophobic. The score avoids overly sentimental cues, opting instead for something that feels more "sharp-tongued" and modern, matching the girls’ wit.
This audio-visual combination enhances the experience by grounding the film’s more heightened comedic moments in a reality that feels tangible. The tone is consistently "delightful" yet "unsentimental," a difficult balance to strike. It captures the specific brand of British humor that finds comedy in the awkward and the uncomfortable, ensuring that the audience is laughing with the characters even as they cringe at their youthful cluelessness. The atmosphere perfectly reflects the "crucible" of the school environment, where small social slights feel like seismic shifts in the earth.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths:
- Sensational Lead Performances: Duggan and Clear are magnetic, providing a fresh and energetic look at teenage dynamics.
- Aoife Riddell’s Phoebe: A truly standout performance that provides the film with its most authentic and heartbreaking moments.
- Sharp, Original Writing: The dialogue is witty, fast-paced, and deeply observant of the way teenage girls speak and think.
- Timeless Aesthetic: The decision to remove modern technology allows the core themes of friendship and love to resonate more universally.
- A Grounded Resolution: The film avoids clichés, offering an ending that is honest and thoughtfully colored by the events that preceded it.
Weaknesses:
- Character Archetypes: In the first half, Flic and Minna can feel more like "personality types" than real people, making it harder for the audience to fully connect with them initially.
- Over-Storyboarded Feel: Some sequences feel so precisely plotted that they lack the "messy idiosyncrasy of life" that characters like Phoebe represent.
- Slow Pacing: Viewers looking for a traditional, high-stakes plot might find the film’s focus on internal growth and shifting moods to be a bit languid.
Final Verdict: A Map Worth Following
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Extra Geography is a beautifully realized, if occasionally too-polished, look at the transition from childhood to the first glimpses of adult reality. It is a film that understands the weight of teenage friendship—how it can be both a life raft and an anchor. By focusing on the "extra geography" of how people form and re-form into shapes that may no longer fit together, Molly Manners has created a piece of cinema that stays with you long after the credits roll.
This film is a must-watch for fans of coming-of-age dramas that prioritize emotional depth and character study over formulaic plot points. If you enjoyed the sharp-tongued wit of Lady Bird or the atmospheric boarding school tension of The Falling, you will find much to admire here. However, those who prefer their teen movies with a heavy dose of romance or high-octane drama might find the film’s "glumly credible" resolution and focus on "feminine angst" to be a bit too somber. Ultimately, it is a rewarding experience that marks the arrival of several major new talents in British cinema.
 Movie Review: A Sharp and Wistful Exploration of Female Friendship and the High Stakes of Girlhood){kind=link}
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