'Extra Geography' Review: A Wholesome Coming-of-Age Story With Some Added Northern Grit
By Romey Norton - September 30, 2026
Female friendship can be one of the most complicated relationships to put on screen. It can be affectionate one minute, competitive the next, and completely incomprehensible to everyone outside of it. Extra Geography is a coming-of-age drama that explores a particular kind of teenage closeness, where your best friend can feel like the most important person in the world, until suddenly they aren't quite looking at the world in the same way anymore.
What is Extra Geography about?
Set in an English girls' boarding school in the early 2000s, Molly Manners' quirky, fun and yet serious drama follows Minna and Flic, two teenage best friends who appear to do almost everything together. They are academically ambitious, fiercely competitive, and determined to make something of themselves. Their friendship is so close that separating them feels almost criminal. Naturally, all good things must come to an end, and coming-of-age stories are all about learning, developing and changing, so this friendship takes a fair few turns.
The two besties decide they should learn how to fall in love, with their geography teacher, Ms Delavigne, becoming the unlikely subject of their experiment. It is an amusingly misguided idea, but it also tells us quite a lot about the girls. They approach romance in the same way they approach schoolwork: identify the objective, develop a strategy and try to succeed. The arrival of boys from a neighbouring school for a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream begins to complicate matters, while the girls' ambitions and insecurities gradually begin to expose cracks in their friendship.
And this is where Extra Geography really finds its voice. Rather than presenting female friendship as endlessly supportive and wholesome, the film is willing to show its less flattering side. Minna and Flic love one another, but there is competition lurking underneath that affection. Who is more attractive? Who is more talented? Who gets noticed? Who gets the opportunity? Even small victories can suddenly feel like personal defeats when two people have become accustomed to being equals. It’s something very real, and happens in a lot of friendships, no matter what age. This is where audiences should be able to identify with these two young girls.
Marni Duggan and Galaxie Clear are excellent at capturing contradiction. Their chemistry is convincing because there is a constant sense that they are studying one another, measuring themselves against each other and occasionally trying to work out who has the upper hand. They’re fun, intriguing and will keep you invested in their friendship and eventual outcome. There are times I was rooting for this friendship and other times I was hoping they’d ‘grow up’ and realise they’re better off without one another.
The early-2000s setting is also a nice touch. This is a pre-social-media world, where friendships weren't being documented online every five minutes and teenage dramas had to happen largely in person. MSN wasn’t as dramatic as people made out. Something is refreshing about watching characters communicate through conversations, looks, rumours and awkward encounters rather than text messages and Instagram posts.
Manners gives the film a distinctive visual identity, too. The boarding-school environment provides an enclosed little world where academic pressure, friendship, ambition and adolescence all collide. The contrast between the ordered environment and the increasingly messy emotional lives of the girls works particularly well. There are some lovely shots of the girls playing alone, sleeping in the same bed - as if they have the whole school to themselves and nothing else matters.
There are some other great locations used too, as the film was primarily filmed on location in Yorkshire, England, with support from Screen Yorkshire. Some locations include the stately home Castle Howard, showcasing some of the North’s best attractions. The North is becoming a power house when it comes to coming-of-age dramas, from Adolecence, to older films like Kes and Rita Sue and Bob Too.
The central idea of attempting to "fall in love" with a teacher is deliberately strange, but it occasionally feels more like a device to push the story towards its next development than something these characters would genuinely do. There are also moments when the film's 93-minute running time feels longer than it actually is and needs to be, particularly as some of the emotional beats begin repeating themselves. The story also introduces several interesting ideas about ambition, sexuality and identity without always giving them equal room to develop. The friendship between Minna and Flic is so consuming that some of the surrounding material can feel like it is competing for attention.
For a feature debut, Manners demonstrates a strong understanding of the emotional minefield of girlhood. Extra Geography is a film about the moment when a friendship that once seemed permanent begins to change, and the uncomfortable realisation that growing up might mean discovering who you are without the person who once seemed to define you.
Funny, awkward and occasionally bittersweet, Extra Geography proves that the most complicated geography teenagers have to navigate isn't always found in a textbook. Sometimes it is sitting right beside them.
'Extra Geography' releases in cinemas on Friday October 2, 2026.
Want more film reviews? Dive into more reviews, rankings, and film conversations on our site.
Explore Film Focus Online now!
Romey Norton
Senior Writer
Romey is a senior writer for Film Focus Online, covering the latest film reviews, news, features and interviews, with a passion for all things cinema.
Want your film or TV show reviewed by Romey? Contact us.
