Every year, there’s one film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival that people start talking about as soon as the credits roll. This year, that could very well be Best Boy.

Written and directed by Jesse Noah Klein, the film begins almost innocently: three grown-up siblings and their elderly mother return to their long-abandoned lakeside home. But what starts as a nostalgic reunion quickly turns strange when they decide to revive an old childhood “competition” — a bizarre ritual they haven’t played in years because it nearly destroyed their family.

Klein describes the film very simply: “I kind of feel that the film is like a ride.”
And it is. It’s tense. It’s unexpectedly funny. And it’s painfully recognisable to anyone who’s ever felt a twinge of jealousy or competitiveness towards a sibling. Klein, himself the youngest of four, used that perspective as a starting point, though the story and games themselves are fictional.

“Anyone who’s felt envious of anyone, anyone who felt competitive. This is human.”

Best Boy is hilarious in places, unsettling in others, and ultimately very relatable. A smart reminder that we never completely grow out of the roles we play in our families… we just learn new ways to perform them.