You Can Choose Your Friends

Ken and Margaret Snell invite their family to celebrate a 45th wedding anniversary that quickly becomes less about cake and speeches and more about old complaints and quiet tensions. As children and grandchildren gather, conversations skim past polite memories and land on awkward truths, revealing how small slights endured over decades still shape interactions. Ian, written and played by Richard Herring, brings an awkward, candid energy that rubs against the others, while Ken and Margaret try to hold the edges of civility together. The movie stays intimate and domestic, letting dialogue and tiny gestures reveal fractures in relationships during a single, revealing afternoon.

Released in 2007 as a television movie, You Can Choose Your Friends was directed by Delyth Thomas and written by Richard Herring, who also appears in the cast alongside Anton Rodgers, Julia McKenzie, Sarah-Jane Potts, and Claire Skinner.

Critical response has been modest, reflected in a small sample score of about 6.0 out of 10 on one voting site. Commentators tended to note the film's dry, observational humor and its interest in how family histories inform present-day behavior, with performances that favor subtlety over melodrama.

The film never reached mainstream prominence, but it found some appreciation among Richard Herring's followers and viewers of intimate British TV comedies. Its compact, living-room feel and emphasis on conversational conflict make it appealing to audiences who prefer character-driven pieces and realistic domestic scenes over broader comedic set-pieces.

There are no widely reported major awards or nominations for You Can Choose Your Friends. As a small television production it remained under most awards radars, though several cast members have had notable recognition in other projects across British theatre and television.