Variety Reviews ‘The State of Us’: A Yorkshire Buddy Comedy About One Last Wild Night
Variety has published its review of "The State of Us," a buddy comedy from first-time directors Ollie Gardner and Jake Harvey, set in Bradford, England. The film premiered in the main competition at the Edinburgh film festival and runs a lean 90 minutes (Variety).
The story follows Frankie, played by Samuel Bottomley, who breaks his terminally ill best friend Taylor out of a hospice for one night of mayhem on the Yorkshire streets. Taylor is played by Callum Scott Howells, known to audiences from the Channel 4 and HBO series "It's a Sin." Bottomley appeared in the 2023 film "How to Have Sex." Rounding out the principal cast is Safia Oakley-Green as Rosie; she starred in the indie horror "Out of Darkness." Frances Barber and Bon Cooper also appear, per IMDb (Screen Daily).
Behind the camera, the credits carry some familiar names for a debut feature. Editor Chris Gill, whose previous work includes "Kneecap" and Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later," cut the film alongside Abi Wright. The cinematographer is Yunus Roy Imer, who shot "The Outrun." Gardner and Harvey share both the directorial credit and the feature-debut distinction, Screen Daily confirmed in its own review published the day before Variety's.
Variety's review, published on 15 August 2026, describes the film as "occasionally hokey but winningly sweet-natured," and calls it "more consistently likable than convincing." Screen Daily, in its 14 August review, charted a similar arc — a boisterous Bradford night out that turns sentimental.
For a debut duo working in a compressed runtime with a cast largely assembled from British film and television's rising ranks, the craft credentials are notable. Gill's editing résumé connects the film to both the Irish-language breakout "Kneecap" and the foundational British horror of "28 Days Later." Imer's work on "The Outrun," the Saoirse Ronan-led adaptation of Amy Liptrot's memoir, placed him in the conversation for his handling of rugged landscape cinematography — a thread that carries into the Yorkshire setting here.
The Edinburgh festival berth places "The State of Us" in the kind of programming slot that distributors and sales agents watch closely, a competitive section where acquired titles often find their first distribution deals. Whether this one travels beyond its UK festival premiere is a question for the market, not the review pages.
