The Boy Friend

In the suffocatingly small town of Smallsville, Ida May Harper is a woman possessed by a geography she has never visited. Fueled by the gilded, likely fabricated letters of a friend living the high life in New York City, Ida begins to view her local surroundings with a toxic level of contempt. This disdain manifests most sharply in her treatment of Joe Pond, her earnest boyfriend who works the local drugstore counter. To Ida, Joe isn't just a partner; he is a symbol of her own stagnation, primarily because he lacks the sartorial 'swell' of the Manhattanites she reads about. When she begins to pivot toward a more sophisticated social circle, Joe doesn't give up. Instead, he attempts to hack the social code by purchasing 'The Book of Charm,' a manual for artificial refinement. The film becomes a battleground between authentic provincialism and the desperate, often hilarious performance of urbanity.