The Inbetweeners 2
The Inbetweeners 2 is a 2014 teen coming of age adventure sex comedy film and sequel to The Inbetweeners Movie, which is based on the E4 sitcom The Inbetweeners. It was written and directed by series creators Damon Beesley and Iain Morris.
The film involves four school friends who meet up again for a holiday in Australia, and stars Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley and Blake Harrison. In media interviews, the film's writers and actors stated that it was to be an end to the series.
The Inbetweeners 2 was released on 6 August 2014 in the United Kingdom and Ireland, to positive reception from critics. It surpassed the record of its predecessor for the highest gross on the opening day of a comedy in the UK, with £2.75 million, and ended its first weekend with a gross of £12.5 million, the largest opening of any film in 2014, then remained on top for a second week. With an overall gross of £33.3 million, it was the highest-grossing British film in the domestic market in 2014. On 21 August, it was released in Australia, to a mixed reception, and topped the box office in its opening weekend.
Plot
It is the lead up to the Easter holidays, and Will, Neil and Jay's respective relationships with Alison, Lisa and Jane of the first film have ended.Will is studying at university in Bristol while Simon is studying in Sheffield. Will is ostracised by his peers at university, while Simon is with his girlfriend Lucy and friend Pete. Neil works in a bank and Jay is taking a gap year in Australia.
Simon is unhappy with his relationship with Lucy, who has become obsessive and abusive. While Neil and Simon visit Will at the University of Bristol, Jay emails them, claiming that he is a DJ at a popular nightclub in Sydney and lives in a mansion. The trio decide to go to Australia to visit Jay.
Upon arrival in Sydney, they discover that Jay works as a nightclub toilet attendant and lives in a tent at his uncle Bryan's house. At the nightclub, Will is reunited with Katie, a girl he studied with in private school, who is backpacking. At her request, Will agrees to join her at Byron Bay. At Bryan's house, Simon attempts to break up with Lucy over Skype, but Bryan tricks her into thinking Simon is proposing and Lucy agrees to marry him.
The boys meet Katie who is with a group of backpackers. While Will tries to fit in with the backpackers, they mock him upon realising that he is a holidaymaker rather than a traveller. They travel to a youth hostel in Byron Bay and Will sings a cover of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" to Katie, who seduces him at the hostel. Before they can have sex, Katie passes out, shortly before a backpacker enters and attacks Will for thinking that he is engaging in rape, setting off Will's own rape alarm in the process.
The next day, the boys join the backpackers at Splash Planet, a water park. Jay believes that his ex-girlfriend Jane works there. Neil accidentally kills a dolphin by feeding it fast food, and Simon is attacked by some fathers after they mistake him for a paedophile. A worker tells Jay that Jane has left Splash Planet and is working in the outback. As Will uses a waterslide, Neil soils himself due to IBS symptoms and his faeces follows Will down the slide. Will is hit in the face by the faeces, causing him to vomit uncontrollably and the pool to be evacuated.
The boys leave Splash Planet, and Jay opens up about having traveled to Australia to reconnect with Jane. Lucy tells Simon over Skype that Jane works at a horse farm in Birdsville. The boys prepare to drive there, but Will, angry and dejected over the Splash Planet incident and towards his friends' treatment of him, stays in Byron Bay in the hopes of starting a relationship with Katie and becoming a traveller. Will struggles to fit in with the "spiritual" activities of the travellers and discovers that Katie is having sex with multiple people at once. He rebukes the group and flies to Birdsville, reconciling with the boys.
In the desert, Jay's car runs out of fuel and the boys try to get help, to no avail. Believing that they will die, they are rescued by Jane and her colleagues. Jane is touched by Jay's efforts to win her over again, but does not take him back.
At Bryan's house in Sydney, the boys discover that Jay's father and Will's mother have flown out to meet them. To Will's dismay, his old head of sixth form, Mr Gilbert, is now in a relationship with Will's mother. Over Skype, Lucy breaks up with Simon after revealing that she has been having sex with Pete. The boys drive off to continue travelling in Australia.
They later travel from Australia to Vietnam, and then spend time in Thailand and Cambodia. Upon their return to the United Kingdom months later, Neil is in a relationship with an older female traveller from Byron Bay, while Will's mother announces her engagement to Mr Gilbert.
Cast
- Simon Bird as Will McKenzie
- James Buckley as Jay Cartwright
- Blake Harrison as Neil Sutherland
- Joe Thomas as Simon Cooper
- Emily Berrington as Katie Evans
- Belinda Stewart-Wilson as Polly McKenzie
- Tamla Kari as Lucy
- Freddie Stroma as Ben Thornton-Wild
- Lydia Rose Bewley as Jane
- David Schaal as Terry Cartwright
- Alex Macqueen as Kevin Sutherland
- Martin Trenaman as Alan Cooper
- Robin Weaver as Pamela Cooper
- Greg Davies as Mr Gilbert
- Adam Nagaitis as Pete
- Oliver Johnstone as Kristian
- Susan Wokoma as Della
- Steve Brody as Bristol pub landlord
- Brad Kannegiesser as Jasper
- David Field as Uncle Bryan
Production
Origin
Although originally intended as an unambiguous ending to the television series, the unexpected popularity and box office success of The Inbetweeners Movie led to speculation over the possibility of a sequel. These rumours began in early September 2011, while the film was still in cinemas, and were denied by its writers and actors. Around the same time, producer Christopher Young openly recognised the possibility of another film based on the series, claiming that "if there is a sequel it will come from the creative elements ... We've talked about it. In the short term people are dispersing and doing other things but I'm sure in the medium term a sequel is very possible. It won't be immediate but it's definitely not closed." Co-writer Damon Beesley later admitted "we didn't know how successful it would be and that it would have a life on screen. But they did translate to big-screen characters, people did care about them and did go back and see it more than once – and that's very rare in cinema. The idea of not following that up seemed insane to most people". The actors had mixed emotions on making a sequel. Although Buckley and Thomas felt put off by the success of the first film, Harrison and Bird became convinced on reading the script.Simon Bird, James Buckley, Blake Harrison and Joe Thomas co-produced the film with Spencer Millman but Damon Beesley and Iain Morris awarded a sole producer credit to Millman; Bird, Buckley, Harrison and Thomas are instead listed as uncredited producers in the film final cut.
Iain Morris received inspiration for the film from his own experiences as a high school exchange student on Australia's Gold Coast, describing it as "a place where people go to get drunk, pick some fruit and get drunk again".
Development
On 21 August 2012, it was announced that a sequel was in early stages of pre-production. On 8 November, it was announced by series creators Morris and Beesley that a script was being written and it was at "version 0.5"On 2 August 2013, the sequel was officially confirmed for release in August 2014. The series' Facebook page revealed on 15 March 2014 that the sequel would be released on 6 August 2014.
On 9 May 2014, a teaser trailer was released, in which the characters drive through the Outback and call an Aborigine a "fire wanker". A second trailer, this time full length, was released on The Inbetweeners official Facebook page on 18 June, showing more of the storyline.
Filming
Filming began in Australia on 7 December 2013, before moving to the UK in January 2014. Part of the film was shot in Marree, South Australia, an isolated Outback settlement without mobile reception or Internet.Ben Palmer, the director of the first Inbetweeners film, was involved with Simon Pegg's film Man Up, so Morris and Beesley directed The Inbetweeners 2. Bird said that the actors were initially disheartened by the absence of Palmer, and nervous about the direction of Morris and Beesley due to their lack of experience in the position.
Morris had considered filming the Australian scenes in South Africa due to the comparatively high costs in Australia, which despite a higher budget caused the sequel to have fewer resources than its predecessor. While all locations for the first film had been within 10 minutes of the hotel, locations in the second were separated by a three-hour flight and nine-hour car journey. During filming in the Outback, the Australian crew provided two doctors and 40 litres of IV fluid, although the only point in which a doctor was called was when Buckley thought that he was having a heart attack, which was in reality indigestion from chips and lager. Beesley considered it "the maniac's choice of a film to be your first film". The water park scenes were filmed at Wet'n'Wild Gold Coast, which Thomas described as "some quite challenging scenes".
When asked whether he ever felt averse to any material in the film due to perceived offence, Morris said that the crew's attitude was "let’s shoot everything, push it, and then if it feels like too much when we’re watching it, we can always pull it back in the editing room".