Ooh, friend!
What is a friend?
Is it someone who’ll take in your Great Dane after your untimely demise despite the No Dogs Allowed policy of their rent-controlled apartment building?
Is it someone who’ll wave a gun in the air and sacrifice any chance of future social hangs to distract onlookers while you adjust your hairpiece?
I don’t have a conclusive answer but two films offer two very different takes on the definition in this weeks’ double review of Friendship and The Friend.
Friendship — Andrew DeYoung
30 years ago Randy Newman made a declaration of best friendship.
Some other folks might be a little bit smarter than I am
Bigger and stronger too, maybe
But none of them will ever love you the way I do
It's me and you, boy
This particular passage from his anthem ‘You’ve Got a Friend in Me’ has always stuck in my memory, partly because the cadence is so fun to impersonate but also because it’s so bloody earnest. And while Randy meant it to score the enemies-to-besties arc of Woody and Buzz Lightyear in 1995’s Toy Story, I’d argue that the sentiment is just as applicable to Friendship, the feature debut from Andrew DeYoung about a man with no friends who falls platonically in love with his new neighbour and just cannot maintain any sense of chill.
The man in question is Craig Waterman (Tim Robinson in a role written specifically for him), a marketing executive whose job is to make apps more addictive. He’s married to Tami (Kate Mara), a florist whose recent cancer remission has prompted her to rekindle a ‘friendship’ with her ex-boyfriend Devon. Craig pays it no mind though, he’s got other things to occupy his time. Things like Ocean View Dining pants, encouraging his son to come see the new Marvel with him because he’s “heard it’s crazy”, and avoiding spoilers for the new Marvel. It has the outline of a life but there’s a Paul Rudd-sized hole at the centre that needs filling.
You don’t know my schedule!
As it happens, someone who is exactly that size has moved in up the street from Craig. His name is Austin Carmichael and he’s a weatherman, frontman in a local punk rock band and wild mushroom enthusiast. Craig and Austin’s friendship starts to blossom over a beer hangout, an invite to a punk rock show and a trip along the sewers to City Hall. Craig has Thelma & Louise inspired fantasies of cruising down the street in a yellow Corvette driven by Austin and things in the fictional city of Clovis are looking up. Unfortunately, they come crashing back down to earth as Craig attends a hangout with Austin’s other friends and commits the kind of social faux pas from which there is no return.
Firstly, I’d like to congratulate whoever was responsible for casting this film. The pairing of I Think You Should Leave’s Tim Robinson with I Love You, Man’s Paul Rudd is truly the stuff of dreams and the perfect duo for a nightmare comedy about the perils of social interaction in adulthood. Paul Rudd carries his hapless, manufactured coolness from Anchorman through to Austin, the apple of Craig’s eye who has his own inner weirdo – it just manifests in a more socially acceptable way. But it’s Robinson who carries the comedy on his lumbering shoulders, bringing his absurd brand of bits gone on too long from I Think You Should Leave to a 100-minute film and letting the suffocating loneliness of suburbia creep in and exacerbate things. Craig has absolutely no emotional regulation skills and it’s both utterly hilarious and unfortunately relatable.
In reviewing the film Mark Kermode made the comparison to Todd Solondz’s Happiness and proposed adding Friendship to the pantheon of ironically named films that embody a dark brand of humour and make us profoundly uncomfortable. I think this is a great point but he left out the fact that Friendship is also absolutely hysterical. Highlights include an underwhelming trip after licking a toad, a series of incredible one-liners (“we never should’ve left Afghanistan”) that are left deliberately unexplored and Craig’s matter of fact response to officers questioning him on his wife’s whereabouts after he returns from date night alone (“she’s in the sewer.”) Nothing in Craig’s life makes sense and I cackled just as often as I winced.
The film has been described as The Cable Guy from the cable guy’s perspective and I think that’s the perfect summary to capture its tone. Friendship is a comedy that can be seen as a horror movie, partly because of the way it's shot and the atmosphere created by its script but also because it tackles a very real issue with very little reverence. We’ve all heard of the male loneliness epidemic but Friendship arrives at a point in time where people are turning to ChatGPT for therapy and companionship rather than brave the possibility of in-person rejection. It sounds wild and dystopian, but the film illustrates precisely why someone might make those choices.
Through Craig, the film explores that high stakes feeling of trying to make friends as an adult. By the age of attaining job security and home ownership you should have amassed a core group of friends from school or work or hobbies with whom you can grow old. Friendship paints a picture of what could happen if you haven’t laid that groundwork and adds an extra layer of difficulty via Craig’s general strangeness and social awkwardness. I’ve read many Letterboxd reviews praising the film’s depiction of neurodivergent interaction and while I can’t speak on whether that’s true or intentional, it’s great to see a film so boldly tackle socialising as an extreme sport.
Ultimately, your enjoyment of Friendship will depend on your tolerance for discomfort or your willingness to unlock memories of having been in similarly awkward social scenarios where you wished you could take back that last thing you said. To not relate to Craig at his worst is to either be a flawless extrovert with a transcript clear of verbal diarrhea or to be unwilling to address your own embarrassing indiscretions. If the former, good for you. If the latter, it might be time to look inward.
Verdict
☆☆☆☆
The absurd, hilarious and interpersonally terrifying Friendship is in cinemas now. Go alone if you dare.
The Friend — Scott McGehee & David Siegel
Outranking most humans for the title of ‘bestie’ is the humble dog, oft-cited as God/nature’s finest creation and the preferred animal of 61% of Australians, according to this survey run by a dubiously impartial insurance aggregator. As one of the 25.4% of Australians who identify as cat people, I’ve always found dogs a bit overrated. I’ve only really met one worthy of the hype – a well-trained labrador with great respect for personal space – while the rest have too closely emulated young children, another breed I’m not all that keen on. Having now seen Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s The Friend, I’m somewhat closer to seeing what all the canine commotion is about.
It helps that the film’s central character Iris (Naomi Watts) is a self-described cat person and writer who enjoys life at her own pace. And that the ward she inherits from her mentor Walter (Bill Murray) is a senior Great Dane rather than one of those stupid little crusty white things. And that the film, an adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s 2018 novel of the same name, is a thoughtful exploration of grief and the different ways animals and humans console each other in times of mutual loss.
The loss at the centre of The Friend is Walter, an esteemed New York writer whose suicide ripples through his friend group and three wives (played in order of marriage by Carla Gugino, Constance Wu and Noma Dumezweni) in ways that both fracture and bind them together. But no one grieves Walter more than Apollo (the now-famous Bing), his beloved Great Dane who does not understand that Papa is never coming back. In a move that surprises everyone, Walter leaves Apollo to Iris, believing her to be the most equipped (or perhaps the most in need of his company) to take care of him for the remainder of his life.
Apollo is already 6 years old and as the vet says, “Big dogs are like butterflies” – everlasting impact, short lifespan. So, in theory, this upheaval to Iris’s life will be a temporary one. Walter’s third wife Barbara (Noma Dumezweni) ensures Iris that Apollo never sleeps on the bed, never tries to destroy furniture and never barks. In moving Apollo from his old forever home to his new cramped Manhattan lodgings, Iris learns that Barb was telling two lies and a truth. Thus, an ethical spanner is thrown in the works; should Iris, who is trying to finish a book, keep Apollo for what remains of his life and just deal with the interruption out of kindness, or surrender him due to the fact that she risks eviction from her rent-controlled apartment for breaching its No Dog policy?
The rest of the film is basically about what happens after, and the new friendship that springs from unfortunate circumstances. Iris, inexperienced with dog behaviour and how to assert dominance, struggles for reign over the bed and doesn’t know how to soothe Apollo’s deep inner hurt. Leaving old crooner records on during the day doesn’t seem to do it but she discovers that reading aloud prompts Apollo’s ears to prick up and depart his comfy mourning spot on the bed. Progress is slow but sure, and it forces Iris to confront her own feelings about Walter’s departure and all that he was to her.
Now, just because I am feline inclined, does not mean I am not a sucker for tales of canine devotion. I still haven’t gotten over the reveal of Fry’s dog’s loyalty in Futurama, itself likely inspired by Hachikō the Akita who continued to wait for his owner at Shibuya train station for almost a decade after his death. While The Friend isn’t going to make me rush out and adopt a dog (and certainly not one the size of a horse), it did deepen my appreciation and understanding of these emotionally intelligent, deeply feeling creatures.
Apollo is treated with reverence by both Walter and the film, particularly in the Gotcha Day flashback that bookends the story, and it’s this aspect of The Friend that I found most moving. The pivotal scene shows Walter jogging beneath the Brooklyn Bridge when something in the distance distracts him and he smiles in disbelief. It’s Apollo, a speckled Great Dane sitting atop a hill, alone and majestic, like some good omen in a classic myth. This memory that Walter ascribes such value to perfectly illustrates the larger than life impact that being chosen by an animal has on a person. Equally does it impact the life of the animal, which is why it’s so important to recognise and respect their emotional health.
And no one does a better job at convincing us that Great Danes are great poets than Bing in his big screen debut. He joins the ranks of Anatomy of a Fall’s Messi as one of the finest canine actors, his heterochromic eyes telling us all we need to know about the pain of losing his person. If he doesn’t win the Palme Dog I’ll be very surprised. Enabling such a performance is his onscreen partner Naomi Watts who is wonderful as Iris, a woman who perhaps hasn’t dealt with her larger feelings until having to share space with the physical reminder of their largeness.
The Friend is a feel-good (and sometimes sad) film that wears its heart on its sleeve. I’m surprised by some of the snarky Letterboxd reviews I’ve read and I can only conclude that these people don’t like nice things. Yes, some of the dialogue is a bit tell over show and the film is definitely too long for what it is, but it’s a film about respecting emotions – human and animal – and I did cry. While I don’t believe in spoilers, doesthedogdie.com exists for a reason and I’m happy to report that no, Apollo does not die in the film. He is very old by the end, though, so we must cherish the time we have left with him.
Verdict
☆☆☆½
The Friend is in cinemas 31st July with advanced screenings at Luna cinemas this Thursday 24th July. Take your support animal.
