"ALMOST FRIENDS"........BARELY A MOVIE.....

Almost Friends (2016)    Movies like this are the toxic side effects of the busy, burgeoning independent film movement........

                 It's another worthless, aimless, slack trifle in that much favored genre of cellphone auteurs who infest film festivals like lice.......the 'Untethered-Millennial-Who-Can't-Figure-Out-What-To-Do-In-Life'.......

                 The would-be filmmaker behind this one, Jake Goldberger really goes out of his way to make you hate this movie.........starting with his semi-comtose leading man, Freddie Highmore, who specializes in walking around in a disconnected haze, as if startled by something he can't quite understand.

                 A skilled chef, but painfully underemployed as a movie theater manager, Highmore spends the film's interminable running time pursing a cute barista (Odeya Rush) he's nursing a crush on.  He's egged on in this quest by his best bud, played by Haley Joel Osment, the one time premier kid star who now pops up in all sorts of oddball projects.

                 Pardon us if we groan out loud at the subplot of Freddie's con-man deadbeat dad, effectively played by Christopher Meloni.  It serves its function of interrupting the scenes of the whiny, simpering Highmore semi-stalking the girl of his dreams.

                 That's it.....we can't go on. We've already put in way more effort in posting about this film than writer-director Goldberger ever did in making it. Zero stars (0).......the very definition of a Nothingburger.......