The Friend, 2024.
Written and Directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel.
Starring Naomi Watts, Bill Murray, Ann Dowd, Constance Wu, Sarah Pidgeon, Carla Gugino, Noma Dumezweni, Felix Solis, Owen Teague, Bing, Gina Costigan, Josh Pais, Annie Fox, Carrie Vu, Sue Jean Kim, Sarah Baskin, Jess Gabor, Juliet Brett, Seth Barrish, Ian Lithgow, Afsheen Misaghi, and Cloé Xhauflaire.
SYNOPSIS:
Follows a story of love, friendship, grief and healing, about a writer who adopts a Great Dane that belonged to a late friend and mentor.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the title The Friend has a double meaning, for Scott McGehee and David Siegel (adapting the novel by Sigrid Nunez) tell a clunky, uneven story about man’s best friend (Bill Murray) and man’s other best friend, a dog (specifically a great dane) named Apollo (Bing) that screams “based on a novel” by how many characters and subplots are short-changed and are considered as afterthoughts.
If you’re coming for the former, temper your expectations regarding screen time. Instead, this is primarily a story about a long-time friend and past significant other, Iris (Naomi Watts), entrusted from beyond the grave to look after that dog, developing an emotional bond that also functions as a means for processing grief, especially since the canine has taken on similar traits of his now deceased master such as captivation for the written word and relaxation through classical music.
Iris never got closure. Walter, an accomplished writer and university lecturer, committed suicide, seemingly brought on by general unhappiness and a problematic past catching up with him. He seems to have had a reputation for sleeping with and dating his students, which has caught up with him in these more cautious and sceptical modern times and put him under heavy scrutiny. While it is an interesting angle to take that Walter is, at least in the eyes of these characters, a respectable person who never hurt or abused anyone, it’s also questionable that the narrative glosses over this. It is actively disinterested in exploring this problematic past and slanderous present. On the other hand, letting those close or once connected to him exist as adults unconcerned with modern social stigmas and politics is a welcome surprise. This is not a cry to sanitize a character as morally pure but to at least dig into a past that will elicit divisive opinions.
A similar relationship with Iris blossomed, except the next day, Walter vehemently stressed that escalating things to intercourse was a mistake. Known for multiple marriages and several partners, Walter didn’t remain close or friendly to any of them except Iris, which brought some jealousy on their behalf. Nevertheless, he was married to Barbara (Noma Dumezweni) at the time of his suicide, a woman he seemed to love. Despite that, looking after Apollo has fallen into the responsibility of Iris, which is a problem since she is not particularly a fan of dogs and has an apartment landlord on her back (primarily out of duty and fear for his job, and not to be a power-hungry jerk) reminding her every time she enters the complex that animals are not allowed.
Long before a breakthrough therapy session that clearly defines what Iris and Apollo (the dog is also acting out, struggling to process losing his master) mean to one another, The Friend has made that metaphor so explicitly clear that it borders on insanity that this movie runs nearly two hours without credits. Even with Naomi Watts delivering a serviceable emotional performance and having sweet chemistry with her canine costar, that dynamic is nowhere near enough to sustain this running time.
Not when there are other wives (Carla Gugino), a daughter (Sarah Pidgeon), obnoxiously rude friends that might be able to take Apollo off her hands, and an interior life for Iris as a lecturer and writer also tasked with putting together Walter’s last book (with the public controversies and his suicide, the author’s popularity has re-entered a boom phase, which is more interesting food for thought the film never takes advantage of) that plays out as background noise to this milquetoast, transparently thematic pet-bonding. Bill Murray has roughly 5 minutes of alive screen time, and that’s being generous without spoiling what the non-alive sequence entails (the only riveting scene in the movie).
What can be said is that The Friend also seems to have started as a deconstruction of tropes and characterizations within storytelling, but that concept is also mostly abandoned. All that remains is a simplistic story about a woman and a dog giving one another closure, thankfully not told with too much saccharine. However, everyone and everything revolving around them is half-heartedly considered. Doing justice to one friend is not enough.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
