Something We Are Your Friends absolutely nails is the gritty romance of becoming.

There is something increasingly special about being ahead of your time and being timeless all at once, and that is exactly what this film is.

Premiering in London on August 11, 2015, We Are Your Friends followed a fascinating trajectory. It was largely dismissed as another glossy, EDM-fueled coming-of-age film riding the commercial peak of dance music. A decade later, we urge you to revisit it. Watching it today, there's a certain tenderness that washes over you as you follow a 20-something-year-old Zac Efron searching for meaning through music, chasing the dream of becoming a DJ and "control people's hearts." Beneath the neon lights and festival sets is a story about ambition in its rawest form. Every character is reaching for something larger than themselves, whether it's success, recognition, love, or simply the hope that life might become more than what it is. Their methods may differ, and not all of them are admirable, but the yearning is universal; “Are we ever gonna be better than this?” Is this film an undeniable masterpiece? Perhaps not. But it is far more emotionally intelligent than it was ever given credit for. It has a way of making you look at your friend trying to become a DJ–we all have one– with a little more grace. And beneath the jokes is someone chasing the same thing we all are: the chance to build a life that feels unmistakably their own.

And maybe it is our nostalgia talking, but the simplicity of the film has become its greatest strength. The dialogue feels lived in rather than calculatedly written, which makes the writing sound ten times better than most of what is being released today. It is natural and organic, reflecting the world the characters inhabit with the same honesty as the music Cole Carter eventually learns to make. Nothing is trying too hard to be profound, which somehow makes it all the more so. One of the best lines in the film is when Squirrel looks at the rest of his friends as they pregame another “Thursday at Social” and says: “This is my favorite part. It’s the moment before it starts.” It is that same sentiment that drives the entirety of the film, the terrifying, exhilarating belief that your life hasn't happened yet. When every night out, every new connection, every creative risk carries the possibility that everything could change.

It would almost be negligent to write about We Are Your Friends without mentioning Emily Ratajkowski-especially now. For many, this was the film that she broke young people's hearts for the first time. Watching her before she became a cultural flashpoint is strangely moving. Before she was endlessly interpreted, debated, and projected onto. Here, she is simply Sophie. Just another twenty-something stumbling toward the life she hoped she'd have. Rewatch We Are Your Friends, and you don't just feel nostalgic for 2015; you feel protective of everyone on screen, as if you know everything that's about to happen to them, and they don't yet.

WORDS BY: NINA LARDI.